LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


QIF-T 
PACIFIC  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 


Accession        ^84597        Class 


BURNETT   TREATISE, 


MDCCCUY. 


THEISM:  THE  WITNESS  OF  REASON  AND  NATURE 

TO  AN  ALL-WISE  AND  BENEFICENT 

CREATOR. 


THEISM: 


THE  WITNESS  OF  REASON  AND  NATURE  TO 

AN  ALL-WISE  AND  BENEFICENT 

CREATOR. 


BY   THE 

REV.    JOHN   TULLOCH,    D.D., 

PRINCIPAL  AND  PRIMARIES  PROFESSOR  OF  THEOLOGT, 
ST.  MART'S  COLLEGE.  ST.  ANDREWS. 


Znrelv  rdv  Kvpiov,  it  apa  yc  ^/rjXa^rjirftav  airdv  xal  ttipcxev-     KAITOirE 
OY  MAKPAN  AHO  ENO2  EKAZTOY  HMfiN  YHAPXONTA. 

—Acts  of  the  Apostles,  xvii.  27- 

" 

: 


NEW  YORK: 

ROBERT    CARTER    &    BROTHERS, 
No.    285    BEOADWAY. 

1856. 


BTERKOTTFEDBT  >.    O.   JENKIXS, 

THOMAS   B.   SMITH,  PRINTER, 

83  &  84  Beekman  Street  22  &  24  Frankfort 


TO 

SIR   DAVID    BREWSTER, 

K.H.  D.C.L.  F.B.S.  V.P.R.S.,  EDINBURGH,  MEMBER  OF  THE  IMPERIAL  INSTITUTE  0» 
FRAKCE,  AND  PRINCIPAL  OF  BT.  LEONARD'S  COLLEGE,  ST.  ANDREWS. 

MY  DEAR  Sm  DAVLD, 

I  DEDICATE  this  Volume  to  you  with  sincere  pleasure.  Through 
your  kindness  I  was  enabled,  while  engaged  in  its  composition,  to 
have  beside  me  certain  volumes  which  otherwise  I  would  have  had 
great  difficulty  in  procuring  in  my  retirement  in  the  country.  I  am 
glad  to  have  such  an  opportunity  of  acknowledging  this  favor,  as 
well  as  of  expressing  my  grateful  sense  of  the  hearty  interest  which 
you  have  always  taken  in  my  studies,  and  my  conviction  of  the  cor- 
diality with  which  you  are  always  ready  to  respond  to  any  demands 
on  your  literary  sympathy,  and  to  lend  your  encouragement  to  stu- 
dious aspiration. 

I  fe<  1,  moreover,  that  I  can,  with  peculiar  fitness,  dedicate  to  you 
the  attempt  which  is  made  in  this  Volume  to  trace  some  portion  of 
the  Divine  meaning  every  where  inscribed  on  Nature,  and  illustrated 
by  the  progress  of  Scientific  Discovery.  However  imperfect  this 
attempt  may  be,  I  am  sure  that  it  is  one  which  will  warmly  engage 
your  regard. 

Allow  me  to  express  the  hope  that  you  may  be  long  spared  to 
adorn  our  ancient  University,  on  which  your  name  and  distinguished 
labors  in  science  and  literature  have  already  conferred  BO  much 

luster. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

MY  DEAR  Sm  DAVID, 

Yours  faithfully, 

JOHN  TULLOCH. 
Pr.  MART'S  COLLXXSB, 


_8459 


• 


PREFACE. 

THE  circumstances  in  which  this  Essay  originated  are 
probably  familiar  to  many.  It  has  been  thought  proper, 
however,  briefly  to  state  them  here. 

Mr.  Burnett,  a  merchant  in  Aberdeen,  whose  character 
appears  to  have  been  marked  by  a  rare  degree  of  Christian 
sensibility  and  benevolence,  among  other  acts  of  liberality,* 
bequeathed  certain  sums,  to  be  expended  at  intervals  of 
forty  years,  in  the  shape  of  two  Premiums,  inviting  to 
the  discussion  of  the  evidences  of  religious  truth,  and  es- 
pecially to  the  consideration  and  confirmation  of  the  at- 
tributes of  Divine  Wisdom  and  Goodness.  The  exact 
terms  of  the  subject  of  inquiry,  as  given  in  Mr.  Burnett's 

• 

own  deed  of  bequest,  will  be  found  to  head  the  Introduc- 
tion which  opens  the  pfesent  Essay. 

*  Mr.  Webster,  agent  for  the  Burnett  Trustees,  informs  me 
that  Mr.  Burnett's  Christian  liberality  extended  itself  to  many 
important  objects  but  too  little  attended  to  in  his  time ; — for 
example,  the  care  of  pauper  lunatics,  and  the  religious  instruc- 
tion of  poor  persons  in  jail,  for  both  of  which  objects  he  left 
benevolent  provision. — The  date  of  Mr.  Burnett's  Deed  of  Be- 
quest is  1786. 


Viii  PREFACE. 

On  the  previous  occasion  of  competition,  the  first  of  the 
Premiums  was  awarded  to  the  late  Principal  Brown  of 
Aberdeen,  and  the  second  to  the  Rev.  John  Bird  Sumner, 
Fellow  of  Eton  College,  and  now  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. 

On  this  occasion,  the  First  Premium  of  £1,800  has  been 
adjudged  to  the  Rev.  R.  A.  Thompson,  M.A.,  Lincolnshire ; 
and  the  second,  of  £600,  to  the  present  writer; — the 
judges  having  been  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor,  Mr.  Henry  Rogers, 
and  the  Rev.  Baden  Powell. 

In  passing  my  Essay  through  the  Press,  I  have  submit- 
ted it  to  a  careful  and  thorough  revision.  Although  the 
subject  had  been  long  in  my  mind,  it  had,  in  the  end,  as- 
sumed form  very  hurriedly ;  and  on  my  receiving  the 
manuscript  back,  many  parts  appeared  to  me  greatly  capa- 
ble of  improvement.  I  have  not  hesitated,  therefore,  to 
correct  freely,  with  the  view  of  imparting  to  the  argument 
greater  consistency,  and  to  the  whole  a  better  finish.  In 
its  general  plan  and  principles,  however,  the  Essay  remains 
substantially  the  same.  Of  the  truth  of  these  principles  I 
feel,  with  the  further  opportunity  of  reflection,  only  the 
more  convinced,  if  I  still  continue  to  feel,  as  I  truly  do, 
that  my  representation  of  them  is  very  imperfect. 

In  reference  to  much  of  the  illustrative  matter  embraced 
in  the  Essay,  I  think  it  right  to  state  here,  that  I  make  no 
pretensions  to  an  independent  investigation  of  the  scientific 


PREFACE.  ix 

details.  My  special  studies,  such  as  they  are,  have  been 
devoted  to  quite  different  provinces  of  inquiry.  I  have 
gathered  my  illustrative  materials,  therefore,  from  the 
most  available  sources  whi  ^h  occurred  to  me,  writing  in  a 
retired  country  Manse,  where  the  difficulty  of  procuring 
the  requisite  books  for  such  a  miscellaneous  course  of 
study  can  only  be  understood  by  those  who  have  expe- 
rienced it.  These  sources,  in  some  cases,  are  certainly  not 
so  original  as  I  could  have  desired ;  but  I  have  conscien- 
tiously aimed,  in  all  cases,  to  present  the  facts  as  accurately 
as  I  could  ascertain  them ;  and  there  is  little,  if  any,  of 
what  I  have  thus  collected  that  will,  I  think,  be  found  open 
to  a  charge  of  inadvertency  or  inaccuracy. 

The  spirit  of  fairness  and  comprehensiveness  in  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  seize  my  subject  throughout,  will,  I 
hope,  commend  itself  to  my  readers.  I  have  sought  the 
truth  simply ;  I  have  sought  it  with  respect  and  tolerance 
for  the  opinions  of  those  from  whom  I  differ,  but  have 
never  shrunk,  in  deference  to  any  names,  from  the  asser- 
tion of  my  own  convictions.  I  certainly  did  not  undertake 
the  subject  from  the  first  as  a  mere  taskwork,  but  because 
I  felt  a  true  interest  in  it,  and  conceived  that  it  was  capable, 
in  some  respects,  of  a  more  argumentatively  consistent 
treatment  than  it  had  hitherto  received.  How  far  I  have 
accomplished  this  my  aim  must  be  left  to  the  judgment 
of  others. 

I  have  further  to  express  my  acknowledgments  to  the 


X  PREFACE. 

kind  friends  who  have  given  me  their  aid  and  advice  in 
the  correction  of  the  press.  I  would  fain  have  mentioned 
my  obligations  in  this  respect  more  particularly,  had  I 
been  permitted. 

It  is  my  earnest  prayer  that  the  volume  now  submitted 
to  the  public  may  in  some  degree  fulfill,  under  the  Divine 
blessing,  the  benevolent  purpose  in  which  it  originated. 
May  it  strengthen,  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  read  it,  im- 
pressions of  that  Divine  wisdom  and  love  which  are  all 
around  them,  and  ever  near  to  them. 


CONTENTS. 


mm 

INTRODUCTION,  1 


SECT.  L— PRINCIPLES  OF  INDUCTIVE  EVIDENCE,        11 

CHAP.  1.   PRINCIPLES  OF  EVIDENCE,          ...  13 

2.   DOCTRINE  OP  CAUSATION,  ....        26 

. .    3.  DOCTRINE  OF  FINAL  CAUSES,    ....      4? 
.  .    4.  THEISTIC  CONCLUSION  (GENERAL  LAWS),  .       .      73 
SUPPLEMENTARY.    SPECIAL  (GEOLOGICAL)  EYIDENCE  OF  A 

CREATOR, 81 

SECT.  II.— ILLUSTRATIVE  (INDUCTIVE)  EVIDENCE,       95 
CHAP.   1.  COSMICAL  ARRANGEMENTS,     ....      97 

2.   STRUCTURE  OF  THE  EARTH,    .  .  .  .120 

*    ..         3.   COSMICAL     AND     TERRESTRIAL    MAGNITUDES — 

DIVINE  POWER, 131 

4.  ELEMENTARY       COMBINATIONS  —  CRYSTALLIZA- 

TION,  137 

5.  ORGANIZATION — DESIGN,  .  .  .  .147 

6.  SPECIAL  ORGANIC  PHENOMENA — VEGETABLE,         160 

7.  SPECIAL  ORGANIC  PHENOMENA — ANIMAL,          .      176 

8.  TYPICAL  FORMS — DIVINE  WISDOM,  .          .199 

9.  MENTAL  ORDER, 211 

. .       10.   SENSATION — DIVINE  GOODNESS,        .  .  .216 

..       11.  INSTINCT, 225 

.  .      12.    COGNITIVE  STRUCTURE  IN  MAN,        .  .  .234 

.  .      13.   EMOTIVE  STRl'CTURE  IN  MAN,  .          .  ,      259 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

SECT.  Ill— MORAL  INTUITIVE  EVIDENCE,       .         .     287 

CHAP.  1.   MORAL  INTUITIVE  EVIDENCE,     ....  289 

.  .       2.   FREEDOM — DIVINE  PERSONALITY,      .  .  .  292 

. .      3.   CONSCIENCE — DIVINE  RIGHTEOUSNESS,       .  .  309 

. .      4.  EEASON — INFINITY  (A  PRIORI  ARGUMENT),  .  319 

SECT.  IV.— DIFFICULTIES  REGARDING  THE  DIVINE 

WISDOM  AND  GOODNESS,         .        .     337 

CHAP.     1.  STATEMENT  OF  DIFFICULTIES,  ETC.,  .  .      339 

2.  GENERAL    CONSIDERATIONS,    INTENDED   TO    OB- 

VIATE DIFFICULTIES,  ....      343 

3.  SPECIAL  EXAMINATION  OF  DIFFICULTIES — PHYS- 

ICAL PAIN  AND  DEATH,       .  .  .  .351 

4.  SPECIAL      EXAMINATION      OF      DIFFICULTIES — 

SORROW, 361 

5.  SPECIAL      EXAMINATION      OF      DIFFICULTIES — 

SOCIAL  EVILS, 371 

6.  SPECIAL  EXAMINATION  OF  DIFFICULTIES — SIN,      379 

7.  CONSIDERATIONS,  ETC. — DERIVED  FROM  "WRIT- 

TEN REVELATION," 396 

8.  THE    DIVINE    MAN — INCARNATE    WISDOM     AND 

LOVE, 403 

9.  THE  GOSPEL  A  DIVINE   POWER    OF  MORAL  ELE.- 

VATION  AND  CONSOLATION,  .  .  .411 

..       10.   LIMITED   RECEPTION   OF   THE   GOSPEL — MILLEN- 
NIAL PROSPECT,          .  .  .  .  .417 

CONCLUSION, 427 


INTRODUCTION. 


"THE  EVIDENCE  THAT  THERE  IS  A  BEING,  ALL- 
POWERFUL,  WISE,  AND  GOOD,  BY  WHOM  EVERY 
THING  EXISTS  ;  AND  PARTICULARLY  TO  OBVIATE 
DIFFICULTIES  REGARDING  THE  WISDOM  AND 
GOODNESS  OF  THE  DEITY;  AND  THIS,  IN  THE 
FIRST  PLACE,  FROM  CONSIDERATIONS  INDEPEND- 
ENT OF  WRITTEN  REVELATION;  ANDX  IN  THE 
SECOND  PLACE,  FROM  THE  REVELATION  OF  THE 
LORD  JESUS  ;  AND,  FROM  THE  WHOLE,  TO  POINT 
OUT  THE  INFERENCES  MOST  NECESSARY  FOR, 


SOME  ambiguity  seems  to  rest  on  the  main  sub- 
ject here  claiming  the  consideration  of  the  Essayist. 
The  words  may  be  so  interpreted  as  to  give  for  the 
special  subject  of  Essay  the  polemical  treatment  of 
the  various  objections  that  have  been  urged  against 
the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Deity.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  interpretation  which  they  were 
probably  intended  to  bear.  The  special  attention 
claimed  to  difficulties  respecting  the  Divine  wisdom 

184597 


2  THEISM. 

and  goodness  was  not  meant,  in  all  likelihood,  to 
constitute  these  the  chief  topics  of  treatment,  in 
contrast  to  the  general  subject  announced  in  the 
first  clause  ;  but  simply  to  indicate  that,  inasmuch 
as  these  attributes  have  been  more  frequently  the 
objects  of  skeptical  assault,  and  are  in  themselves 
more  obviously  exposed  to  cavil,  so  they  deserve 
a  more  particular  proof,  not  only  on  positive 
grounds,  but  in  direct  reference  to  the  objections 
which  readily  occur,  and  have  been  often  brought 
against  them.  The  truth  is,  that,  in  any  attempt 
"  to  obviate"  these  difficulties,  the  main  recourse 
must  ever  be  to  the  vastly  preponderating  positive 
evidence  in  favor  of  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
the  Deity  ;  and  just  the  more  thorough  and  com- 
plete the  presentation  of  this  evidence,  the  less 
force  will  be  felt  in  such  difficulties,  and  the  less 
trouble  in  dealing  with  them  polemically. 

In  any  point  of  view,  therefore,  we  consider 
ourselves  justified  in  regarding  the  main  and 
proper  subject  of  Essay  as  that  announced  in  the 
first  clause — viz.,  the  "  Evidence  that  there  is  a 
Being,  all-powerful,  wise,  and  good,  by  whom 
every  thing  exists."  And  to  this  subject,  accord 
ingly,  the  bulk  of  the  present  treatise  is  devoted. 

The  science  of  Natural  Theology  has  especially 
suffered  from  the  narrow  and  one-sided  spirit  in 
which  it  has  been  cultivated.  Separate  inquirers 
have  generally  given  themselves  to  some  favorite 


INTRODUCTION. 


branch  of  evidence,  which  they  have  not  been  con- 
tent merely  to  explore  by  itself,  but  which  they 
have  aimed  to  exalt  over  other  branches.  The 
successive  labors  of  natural  theologians  appear  in 
this  way  to  present  the  spectacle  rather  of  incon- 
sistent structures,  displacing  or  overlying  one  an- 
other, than  of  parts  fitting  harmoniously  together 
into  one  great  scheme  of  argument.  The  still 
standing  dispute  between  the  a  posteriori  and  a 
priori  classes  of  thinkers,  testifies  strongly  to  this 
discordance.  While  some  profound  and  earnest 
men  have  sought  to  raise  the  whole  superstructure 
of  natural  theology  upon  an  a  priori  datum,  others, 
equally  earnest,  though  with  less  speculative  power, 
have  at  once  put  aside  all  such  attempts  as  useless, 
and  even  impugned  them  with  a  jealous  restrict- 
iveness. 

Zeal  on  the  one  side  has  provoked  contempt  on 
the  other ;  arid  here,  as  in  other  cases,  the  abstract 
reasoner  and  the  popular  expositor  have  seemed  to 
stand  as  opponents,  rather  than  as  helpmates  in 
the  same  cause.* 

The  result  of  thjs  has  been  not  a  little  confusion 
and  uncertainty  as  to  the  principles  of  the  science 

*  This  conflict  among  natural  theologians  was  already  indi- 
cated by  Kant  in  his  great  work,  in  which  he  submits  all  the 
separate  modes  of  theistic  argument  to  a  keenly  scientific  sift- 
ing. And  it  is  impossible  that  any  can  be  familiar  with  even 
our  own  British  literature  on  the  subject,  without  being  made 
aware  of  the  existence  of  such  a  conflict. 


4  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

on  the  one  hand,  and  its  comprehensiveness  on  the 
other.  With  a  general  acknowledgment  of  the 
convincing  mass  of  evidencs  on  which  it  is  based, 
the  clear  logical  coherence  and  relative  bearing  of 
that  evidence  are  still  very  indistinctly  appre- 
hended. The  problem  of  natural  theology — what 
it  really  is  ?  what  principles  it  involves  ?  and  the 
distinctive  character  and  force  of  these  principles  ? 
— it  can  not  be  said  that  there  exists  any  thing 
like  harmony  of  opinion  on  these  questions.  Great 
as  was  the  service  rendered  to  the  science  by  the 
varied  interest  and  argumentative  skill  of  the 
Bridgewater  Treatises,  these  questions  lay  beyond 
the  formal  range  of  any  of  them ;  and,  with  all  the 
light  which  they  cast  on  its  diversified  applications, 
they  contributed  but  little  to  the  determination, 
the  scientific  analysis  and  co-ordination  of  its 
fundamental  doctrine. 

But  so  far  as  the  interests  of  the  science  are  con- 
cerned in  our  day,  this  is  undoubtedly  the  special 
task  required  of  the  natural  theologian.  It  is  in 
the  region  of  First  Principles,  above  all,  that  an 
earnest  and  sifting  discussion  is  now  taking  place. 
There  is  an  evident  striving  to  grasp  in  a  clearer 
solution,  to  hold  in  a  more  thorough  unity  and 
comprehensiveness  than  have  been  hitherto  at- 
tained, the  elements  of  our  science.  The  spirit  of 
eclecticism  which  has  largely  penetrated  philoso- 
phy in  general,  is  seeking,  in  this  department  of  it, 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

with  special  eagerness,  a  common  center  and  per- 
vading interest.  We  have  ourselves,  at  least, 
strongly  felt  the  necessity  for  a  treatment  of  the 
theistic  problem  at  once  more  penetrating  and  syn- 
thetic, and  have  accordingly  aimed  at  such  a  treat- 
ment of  it  in  the  present  essay. 

We  apprehend  the  theistic  evidence,  as  far  as 
possible,  under  one  plan  or  scheme,  which  may  be 
generally  called  "  Inductive."  Inasmuch,  however, 
as  this  plan  of  evidence,  in  its  very  conception, 
rests  upon  certain  definite  principles  of  philosoph- 
ical belief,  we  consider  it  necessary,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  lay  down  and  verify  these  principles. 
We  have  felt  that,  in  the  present  state  of  specula- 
tive discussion,  we  could  not  for  a  moment  take 
these  principles  for  granted,  seeing  that  the  two 
most  living  and  active  schools  of  philosophical  un- 
belief proceed  upon  the  express  negation  of  them, 
and  that  in  them  really  lies  the  gist  of  the  theistic 
problem.  It  is  our  aim,  accordingly,  not  merely 
to  state  these  principles,  but  to  establish  them. 

Having  laid  down  a  satisfactory  basis  of  princi- 
ples, we  proceed,  in  the  second  section  of  the  essay, 
to  unfold,  in  something  like  organic  relation  and 
coherence,  the  array  of  inductive  or  a  posteriori 
evidence  for  the  Divine  power,  wisdom,  and  good- 
ness presented  by  the  vastly  diversified  phenomena 
of  matter  and  of  mind.  This,  obviously,  is  a 
boundless  field,  which  nc  range  of  inquiry  can  ex- 


6  THEISM. 

haust,  and  which,  even  were  it  possible,  it  would 
be  needless,  for  the  end  in  view  to  try  to  exhaust. 
Our  object  is  simply  to  unfold  the  distinguishing 
and  essential  features  of  this  ever-accumulating 
mass  of  evidence,  and  to  present  them,  as  far  as 
we  can,  in  an  order  of  progression,  in  which  they 
may  be  seen  to  bear  with  expansive  force  upon  the 
vindication  and  illustration  of  the  Divine  character. 
"We  advance  from  the  more  general  and  simple 
phenomena  of  nature,  through  the  more  complex, 
up  to  the  highest  and  most  subtle  combinations  to 
be  found  in  man's  intellectual  and  emotive  consti- 
tution ;  and  in  the  course  of  this  procession  it  is 
our  chief  aim — that  under  the  guidance  of  which 
we  advance — to  seize  and  set  forth  those  ultimate 
typical  realities  which  all  along  meet  us,  and  which, 
while  in  their  mystery  they  point  directly  back  to 
a  Divine  Source,  serve  at  the  same  time  prominent- 
ly to  characterize  this  Source.  It  is  only  some 
guiding  aim  of  this  sort,  however  imperfectly  it 
may  be  carried  out,  that  could  bring  within  any  in- 
telligible limits,  or  give  any  living  interest  to,  such 
a  survey. 

Whereas  the  section  on  "  Principles"  will,  it  is 
hoped,  serve  to  verify  on  the  deepest  grounds  the 
fundamental  theistic  conception  of  an  intelligent 
First  Cause — this  second  illustrative  section  will 
serve  to  clothe  the  bare  abstract  idea  of  such  a 
Cause  in  the  attributes  of  power,  wisdom,  and 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

goodness  reflected  from  the  great  leading  forms  or 
facts  of  nature. 

Having  completed  our  inductive  survey,  we  re- 
turn, in  a  third  section,  which  we  have  entitled, 
"  Moral  Intuitive  Evidence,"  to  the  region  of  First 
Principles,  and  in  this  region  endeavor  further  to 
establish  certain  elements  of  the  theistic  conception 
— viz.,  Personality,  Righteousness,  and  Infinity — 
without  a  special  verification  of  which,  every  theis- 
tic argument  must,  according  to  our  view,  utterly 
fail  of  its  purpose.  Under  this  section  of  evidence 
we  are  led  to  treat  of  the  common  a  priori  argu- 
ment, and  to  assign  to  it  its  distinctive  value  in  the 
general  plan  of  theistic  speculation. 

It  may  be  inferred  from  what  we  have  said  that, 
while  our  second  section  of  Evidence  corresponds 
to  the  common  treatment  of  the  a  posteriori  argu- 
ment, as  exemplified  in  Paley  and  the  Bridgewater 
Treatises,  both  our  first  and  third  sections  deal 
simply  with  the  elements  of  the  a  priori  argument. 
And  if  any  choose  to  apply  the  term  a  priori  to 
the  discussions  contained  in  these  sections,  it  mat- 
ters very  little.  They  really,  however,  embrace  a 
course  of  reasoning  to  which  that  term,  in  the  re- 
strictive sense  in  which  it  has  been  applied  to  defi- 
nite arguments  for  the  existence  of  the  Deity,  has 
no  proper  application.* 

*  The  term  a  priori  is,  not,  in  fact,  applied  with  any  consist- 
o:»  y  even  to  these  arg\raients,  some  of  the  different  forms  of  the 


8  THEISM. 

Upon  any  definite  scheme  of  a  priori  argument- 
ation, involving  a  process  of  mere  abstract  deduc- 
tion from  some  single  element  of  thought,  or  even 
of  experience,  it  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel  that  we 
do  not  place  any  reliance.  We  are  as  little  in- 
clined as  those  who  have  most  zealously  opposed 
this  sort  of  argumentation,  to  ascribe  a  convincing 
force  to  it.  So  far  we  are  at  one  with  the  general 
spirit  of  natural  theological  inquiry  which  prevails 
in  this  country,  as  represented  by  such  writers  as 
Brown,  Brougham,  and  Chalmers.  But,  then,  we 
consider  that  these  writers,  while  rightly  repudiat- 
ing the  conclusiveness  of  a  priori  reasoning  in  refer- 
ence to  our  subject,  have  failed  to  set  forth,  and 
even  to  apprehend  with  clearness  and  comprehen- 
siveness, the  subjective  conditions,  or,  in  our  pre- 
vious language,  principles,  which  their  a  posteriori 
argument  at  once  presupposes  as  its  essential  basis, 
and  demands  in  order  to  its  complete  and  effective 
validity.  Now,  it  is  simply  the  object  of  the 
first  and  third  section  of  this  essay  to  determine 
and  verify  these  conditions  or  principles,  which,  as 
thus  forming  the  only  adequate  foundation,  and  the 
culminating  force  of  the  general  evidence  for  the 
Divine  existence  and  character,  seem  eminently  in 

Cartesian  argument,  and  that  of  Clarke  especially,  resting  on 
an  express  datum  of  experience ;  whereas  it  is  the  pretension 
of  a  pure  a  priori  argument  to  demonstrate  the  Divine  existence 
from  the  formal  conceptions  of  the  human  mind. 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

present  day  to  claim  the  attention  of  the  natu- 
ral theologian.  The  chain  of  induction  goes  up  in 
unnumbered  links;  but  this  chain  rests  at  both 
points  on  principles  of  intuitive  belief,  which  must 
be  thoroughly  understood  and  substantiated. 

While,  therefore,  our  third  section  receives  a 
distinctive  name,  and  might,  as  a  branch  of  theistic 
evidence,  to  some  extent  stand  by  itself,  we  would 
yet  have  it  to  be  viewed  in  strict  connection  with 
the  preceding  sections ;  in  which  connection  alone 
our  general  evidence  will  be  seen  in  its  fully  con- 
clusive bearing. 

A  fourth  and  concluding  section  is  devoted,  ac- 
cording to  our  view  of  the  terms  of  the  subject,  to 
a  particular  examination  of  the  "  difficulties  regard- 
ing the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Deity,"  as  they 
derive  any  explanation  from  the  light  of  Nature, 
or  finally  from  the  disclosures  of  "written  Kevela- 
tion." 

Throughout  the  essay  we  have  kept  in  view  very 
prominently  the  anti-theistic  tendencies  of  our  time, 
especially  as  manifested  in  the  form  of  Positivism. 
This  seemed  to  be  demanded  by  the  character  of 
the  essay,  which,  prescribed  at  intervals  of  forty 
years,  was  probably  designed  to  meet  the  forms  of 
speculative  skepticism  likely  to  arise  at  such  inter- 
vals. In  the  history  of  thought,  forty  years  is  a 
wide  period,  during  which  great  changes  of  opinion 
may  be  expected  tq  occur.  And  it  is  at  least  certain 
1* 


10  THEISM. 

that,  since  the  date  of  the  publication  of  the  last 
essays  on  our  subject,  the  question  between  the 
Christian  Theist  and  the  speculative  Skeptic,  if,  as 
they  ever  must  be,  essentially  the  same,  have  yet 
assumed  very  changed  aspects.  Materialistic  Pan- 
theism, in  the  shape  of  "Positive  Philosophy," 
has  especially  assumed  a  dignity  and  pretension 
which  in  some  respects  invest  it  with  a  new  char- 
acter, and  require  a  new  and  more  comprehensive 
mode  of  treatment.  Our  essay  throughout  will  be 
found  to  bear  the  impress  of  this  conviction.* 

*  Miss  Martineau's  recent  translation  of  Comte's  great  work, 
and  Mr.  G.  II.  Lewes'  popular  exposition  of  Positivism  (pub- 
lished as  one  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Scientific  Library),  give 
additional  significance  to  the  purpose  that  animates  our  essay. 


SECTION    I, 


PRINCIPLES  OF  INDUCTIVE  EVIDENCE. 


j  ,3ITY 

§  I.— CHAPTER   I. 


PRINCIPLES     OF     EVIDENCE. 

THE  Theistic  Evidence,  in  its  common  inductive 
form,  derives  its  logical  force  from  certain  princi- 
ples implied  in  its  very  conception.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  in  entering  upon  our  subject,  to  deter- 
mine these  principles,  and  the  grounds  on  which 
they  rest.  The  special  necessity  of  such  an  initial 
explanation  and  verification  of  principles,  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  in  regard  to  them  alone  that 
there  remains  any  dispute.  The  question  between 
the  Theist  and  the  Anti-Theist — Pantheist  or 
Atheist— necessarily  always  resolves  itself  into  one 
of  this  fundamental  character.  It  becomes  a  con- 
troversy, not  as  to  the  existence  of  certain  phe- 
nomena in  nature — whose  existence  is  really  indis- 
putable on  either  side — but  as  to  the  true  meaning 
or  interpretation  of  these  phenomena.  And  espe- 
cially is  this  the  present  aspect  of  the  question, 
amid  the  new  stir  which,  from  opposite  quarters, 
has  begun  in  philosophical  inquiry.  We  can  not 


14  T  II  E  I  S  M  . 

therefore  save  ourselves,  even  if  we  would,  from 
taking  up  the  speculative  discussions  which  lie 
across  the  threshold  of  our  subject,  and  endeavor- 
ing to  establish  our  position  securely  on  the  nar- 
row platform  of  First  Principles.  In  this  way, 
besides,  we  shall  exhibit,  better  than  in  any  other, 
the  condensed  logical  force  of  the  Evidence,  illus- 
tratively expanded  in  the  succeeding  section.  The 
theistie  argument  may  be  syllogistically  expressed 
as  follows,  in  a  form  which  appears  to  us  at  once 
simple  and  free  from  ambiguity — viz.,  First  or 
major  premiss, 

Order  universally  proves  Mind. 
Second,  or  minor  premiss, 

The  works  of  Nature  discover  Order. 
Conclusion, 

The  works  of  Nature  prove  Mind* 

*  Dr.  Reid  long  ngo  expressed  the  theistie  argument  in  a 
syllogistic  form,  as  follows :  "First,  That  design  and  intelligence 
in  the  cause  may,  with  certainty,  be  inferred  from  marks  or 
signs  of  it  in  the  effect.  This  is  the  major  proposition  of  the 
argument.  The  second,  which  we  call  the  minor  proposition, 
is,  That  there  are  in  fact  the  clearest  marks  of  design  and  wis- 
dom in  the  works  of  nature ;  and  the  conclusion  is,  That  the 
works  of  nature  are  the  effects  of  a  wise  and  intelligent  Cause. 
One  must  either  assent  to  the  conclusion,  or  deny  one  or  other 
of  the  premises." 

To  this  statement  of  'the  theistie  syllogism,  which,  to  say  the 
least,  is  not  remarkable  for  precision,  considerable  exception 
has  been  taken  by  succeeding  writers.  Dr.  Crombie,  in  his 
work  on  Natural  Theology,  maintains  that  the  syllogism  of 
Reid  is  vicious  in  this  respect,  that  in  passing  from  the  major 
to  the  minor  proposition,  he  tacitly  carries  over  to  the  "  works 


PRINCIPLES.  15 

It  is  of  great  importance  to  keep  clear  in  the 
outset  of  all  ambiguous  or  misleading  terms.  And 
this  conviction  has  led  us  to  reject  from  our  syllo- 
gism such  common  expressions  as  not  only  "  cause" 
and  "effect,"  but  also  "design."  There  will  be 
abundant  use  in  the  sequel  for  this  latter  ex- 
pression in  all  its  full  and  appropriate  significance, 
when  we  have  established  the  great  general  doc- 

of  nature"  the  conclusion  suggested  by  the  term  "  effect ;" 
while  yet,  according  to  Dr.  Crombie,  this  is  the  very  thing  to 
be  proved — viz.,  That  the  world  is  an  effect.  He  thus  repre- 
sents Reid's  statement  of  the  argument :  "  Marks  of  design  in 
the  effect  prove  design  in  the  cause.  The  works  of  nature  are 
an  effect,  and  exhibit  marks  of  design ;  therefore  the  works  of 
nature  prove  design  in  the  cause."  Besides  the  invalid  assump- 
tion which  Dr.  Crombie  maintains  is  here  introduced  into  the 
minor  premiss,  he  objects,  and  we  think  with  perfect  justice,  to 
the  mode  in  which  the  first  proposition  is  stated,  "  marks  of 
design  in  the  effect"  being  simply  equivalent  to  "design  in  the 
caose." 

The  more  general  form  in  which  we  have  put  the  syllogism 
in  the  text,  appears  to  us  entirely  to  obviate  these  objections ; 
and  especially  to  liberate  us  from  any  such  preliminary  neces- 
sity as  that  of  proving  the  world  to  be  an  "  effect."  By  putting 
out  of  view  this  term,  and  dealing  simply  with  the  fact  of 
order,  we  have  already,  according  to  the  truth  of  our  first 
proposition,  Mind  as  its  cause.  It  is  not  necessary  that  we 
show  previously  that  the  orderly  fact  or  phenomenon  is  an 
"  effect,"  for  this  simple  reason,  that  in  its  very  nature  it  is 
such.  In  virtue  of  its  character — as  manifesting  order — it  is 
already  declared  a  product  or  effect.  This  of  course  may  be 
held  equally  true  on  the  syllogistic  basis  of  Reid ;  and  we  do 
not  therefore  concur  in  this  part  of  Dr.  Crombie's  criticism. 
Only  by  avoiding  the  use  of  the  term  "effect,"  we  obviate  such 
an  objection.  Our  mode  of  expression  disencumbers  the  argu- 
ment of  an  extraneous  element  of  debate,  and  so  far  places  the 
skeptical  cavil  of  Hume  simply  beside  the  question. 


16  THEISM. 

trine  on  which  it  rests — viz.,  That  Mind  is  every- 
where the  only  valid  explanation  of  Order — its 
necessary  correlate. 

It  is  this  doctrine — the  equivalent  obviously  of 
the  major  premiss  of  our  syllogism — which  appears 
to  us  to  present,  in  its  really  valid  and  fundamental 
character,  the  theistic  problem.  Essentially,  it  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  old  doctrine  of 
Final  Causes ;  but,  for  the  reason  already  stated, 
we  prefer  considering  it  in  the  mean  time  in  a  new 
and  untechnical  form  of  expression. 

Upon  this  fundamental  position  rests  the  whole 
burden  of  the  inductive  theistic  argument.  If  this 
position  can  be  established — if  the  right  of  Intelli- 
gence to  stand  every  where  as  the  correlate  of 
Order  can  be  made  good — the  Pantheist  or  Posi- 
tivist  very  well  knows  that,  even  according  to  his 
own  favorite  mode  of  viewing  nature  as  a  system 
of  law  or  order,  the  theistic  conclusion  directly  fol- 
lows. The  fact  of  a  supremely  Intelligent  Cause 
then  every  where  asserts  itself.  The  discoveries 
of  science,  in  all  their  rich  variety,  became  only 
tributary  witnesses  to  this  fact.  Here,  accordingly, 
the  whole  contest  of  Theism  centers,  and  finds  its 
most  vital  struggle.  And  of  this  the  opposite 
school  of  thinkers  are  sufficiently  aware.  They 
clearly  feel  that  it  is  here  alone  that  a  consistent 
position  of  denial  can  be  taken  up.  The  right  of 
Mind  to  be  held  every  where  as  the  correlate  of 


PRINCIPLES.  17 

Order,  and  so  to  stand  at  the  head  of  nature,  is 
stoutly,  and  even  scornfully,  impugned  by  them. 
That  Mind  is  in  man  and  animals  the  appropriate 
explanation  of  many  facts  of  order,  is  of  course  not 
denied  ;  but  it  is  expressly  denied  that  it  has  any 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  only  true  source,  and 
final  explanation,  of  all  order. 

"We  may  seem  to  have  put  the  theistic  problem 
in  a  somewhat  unfamiliar  form.  But,  while  con- 
fessedly not  the  form  in  which  it  has  been  usually 
discussed,  it  is  nevertheless  that  in  which,  beyond 
all  doubt,  it  most  urgently  presses  itself  upon  our 
attention.  Even  in  the  writings  of  Hume  it  is  this 
aspect  of  the  question  which  suggests  itself  most 
powerfully,  and  which  gives  the  main  point  to  his 
famous  skeptical  reasoning — a  fact  which  has  not 
been  sufficiently  perceived.  Interest  has  been  con- 
centrated upon  his  ingenious  attempt  to  represent 
the  world  as  a  ''singular  effect,"  but  without  a 
clear  insight  into  the  deeper  principle  by  which  he 
was  led  to  take  up  this  ground,  and  which  alone 
gives  to  it  all  its  force.  If  we  can  establish  Mind 
as  the  universal  correlate  of  order,  it  must  be  man- 
ifest that  there  is  no  room  for  such  a  position  as 
that  the  world  is  a  u  singular  effect."  The  only 
question  is,  Does  the  world  discover  order  ?  That 
Hume  was  perfectly  aware  of  this,  and  that  the 
real  and  final  question  regarding  Theism  related 
to  the  rightful  claims  and  dignity  of  Mind,  is  so 


18  THEISM. 

abundantly  plain  in  the  course  of  his  reasoning, 
that  it  seems  strange  that  it  has  not  hitherto  at- 
tracted more  special  examination.  Even  Dr.  Chal- 
mers— who  plainly  enough  saw  that  the  mode, 
adopted  by  Keid  and  Stewart,  of  settling  the  mat- 
ter by  at  once  declaring  design  to  be  an  intuitive 
principle  of  belief,  was  not  all  that  was  demanded 
against  such  an  opponent — does  not  seem  to  have 
penetrated  to  this  essential  element  of  the  subtlety 
which  he  manfully  encounters.  So  far  triumphant 
in  his  vindication  of  the  theistic  inference,  as  rest- 
ing on  the  same  basis  of  experience  as  any  other 
inference  from  design,  he  does  not  yet  reach,  and 
bring  out  fully,  the  ultimate  rational  truth  on 
which  alone  that  inference,  in  the  end,  must  rest. 

To  employ  his  own  illustration,  "  If  we  can  infer 
the  agency  of  design  in  a  watchmaker,  though  we 
never  saw  a  watch  made,  we  can,  on  the  very  same 
ground,  infer  the  agency  of  design  on  the  part  of  a 
world-maker,  though  we  never  saw  a  world  made." 
All  that  is  requisite  to  constitute  the  inference 
valid  in  either  case  is  not,  as  the  skeptical  objec- 
tion implied,  experience  with  the  actual  produc- 
tion of  the  special  effects — with  the  making  of  a 
watch  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  making  of  a  world 
on  the  other — but  only  with  the  simple  fact  of 
adaptation  on  the  one  hand,  and  Mind  as  its  expla- 
nation on  the  other.  This  general  form  of  experi- 
ence is  the  sufficiently  warrantable  basis  of  infer- 


p  i:  i  x  c  i  p  L  E  s .  19 


ence  in  either  case.*  But  it  must  be  plain,  we 
think,  that  the  result  of  experience,  generalize  it  as 
we  may,  can  only  be  argumentatively  valid  when 
seen  to  be  a  truth  of  reason — in  other  words  when 
transformed  into  the  position  laid  down  in  our  first 
premiss,  viz.  that  adaptation  or  order  universally 
proves  Mind.  For  otherwise  we  do  not  see  how 
it  would  avail  to  say  that  the  "  watch,"  so  far  as 
our  experience  of  its  production  is  concerned,  is  in 
the  very  same  category  as  the  "  world."  The  old 
objection  would  still  recur,  in  this  higher  form, 
exactly  the  opposite  of  the  position  we  have  laid 
down — viz.,  that  order  (confessed  in  many  cases  to 
be  the  result  of  mind)  can  not  yet  be  validly  main- 
tained, in  all  cases,  to  flow  only  from  Mind.  No 
basis  of  experience  simply  can  warrant  such  a  con- 
clusion. Admitting  the  effects  to  be  similar,  we 
are  not  thereby  warranted  in  asserting  that  the  ex- 
planation of  the  human  effect  is  the  only  valid 
explanation  of  the  universal  effect.  It  can  only  be 
on  grounds  of  reason — on  the  basis  not  simply  of 
experience,  but  of  the  inherent  laws  of  our  rational 
constitution — that  we  can  impregnably  take  up 
such  a  position  against  the  Anti-Theist.  This  must, 
beyond  doubt,  come  to  be  the  final  argumentative 
bearing  of  the  question — which  is  thus  really, 
when  pushed  back  to  its  last  analysis,  one  not  so 

*  This  is  virtually  the  import  of  Chalmers'  amplified  argu- 
ment.    See  his  Natural  Theology,  pp.  150,  151. 


20  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

much  regarding  the  world  as  a  singular  effect,  as 
regarding  Mind  as  a  singular  cause. 

How  this  appears  in  the  writings  of  Hume  as  the 
really  vital  element  of  the  question,  is  abundantly 
clear  from  the  following  paragraphs :  — * 

"But  can  you  think,  Clean thes,  that  your  usual 
philosophy  has  been  preserved  in  so  wide  a  step  as 
you  have  taken,  when  you  compared  to  the  uni- 
verse houses,  ships,  furniture,  machines,  and,  from 
their  similarity  in  some  circumstances,  inferred  a 
similarity  in  their  causes  ?  TJwught,  design,  intelli- 
gence, such  as  we  discover  in  men  and  other  animals, 
is  no  more  than  one  of  the  springs  and  principles  of 
the  universe,  as  well  as  heat  or  cold,  attraction  or  re- 
pulsion, and  a  hundred  others  ivhichfall  under  daily 
observation.  It  is  an  active  cause  by  which  some 
particular  parts  of  nature,  we  find,  produce  altera- 
tions on  other  parts.  Bat  can  a  conclusion,  with  any 
propriety,  be  transferred  from  parts  to  the  whole  F" 

"  But,  allowing  that  we  were  to  take  the  opera- 
tions of  one  part  of  nature  upon  another  for  the 
foundation  of  our  judgment  concerning  the  origin 
of  the  whole  (which  never  can  be  admitted),  yet 
why  select  so  minute,  so  weak,  so  bounded  a  prin- 
ciple as  the  reason  and  design  of  animals  is  found 
to  be  upon  this  planet  ?  What  peculiar  privilege 
has  this  little  agitation  of  the  brain,  which  we  call 

*  Dialogue  concerning  Natural  Religion,  HUME'S   Works,  vol. 
iL  pp.  446,  443. 


PRINCIPLES.  21 

thought,  that  we  must  thus  make  it  the  model  of  the 
whole  universe  f" 

"  Admirable  conclusion !  Stone,  wood,  brick, 
iron,  brass,  have  not,  at  this  time,  in  this  minute 
globe  of  earth,  an  order  or  arrangement  without 
human  art  and  contrivance  ;  therefore  the  universe 
could  not  originally  attain  its  order  and  arrange- 
ment without  something  similar  to  human  art.  But 
is  a  part  of  nature  a  rule  for  another  part  very  wide 
of  the  former  ?  Is  it  a  rule  for  the  whole  f  Is  a  very 
small  part  a  rule  for  the  UNIVERSE  ?" 

The  real  subject  of  dispute,  then,  on  the  old  battle- 
ground of  Theism,  which  has  descended  to  us,  re- 
gards the  valid  claim  of  Mind  to  stand  universally 
as  the  Interpretation  of  Order.  And  more  emi- 
nently than  ever,  in  the  present  day,  is  this  the 
vital  point  at  issue.  The  views  thrown  out  with 
such  an  apparently  heedless,  yet  far-reaching  subtle- 
ty, by  Hume,  have  at  length  been  taken  up  in  a 
strictly  scientific  form,  and  elaborated  into  a  philo- 
sophical creed,  which  boasts  numerous  and  able 
advocates.  Positivism,  indeed,  if  springing  direct- 
ly from  the  irreverent  soil  of  French  scientific  cul- 
ture, yet  traces  back  its  lineage  to  the  Scottish 
skeptic,  of  whose  keen  and  arrogant  genius  it  is  so 
fitting  a  representative. 

It  is  true  that  in  this  modern  skeptical  system, 
the  theological  bearing  of  the  views  advocated  is 
not  always  prominently  brought  forward — some- 


22  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

times  rather  simply  passed  by,  as  beyond  the  con- 
cern of  science.  This  is  specially  the  case  with  the 
writer  who  is,  in  this  country,  its  ablest  and  most 
systematic  expositor.  But  in  other  cases  no  oppor- 
tunity is  lost  of  bringing  out  this  bearing  in  the 
most  decided  manner ;  and,  even  in  the  chief  work 
of  the  writer  in  question,  it  is  so  clear  and  unmis- 
takable that  it  is  impossible  not  to  perceive,  under 
the  show  of  courtesy,  the  deadly  shafts  leveled  at 
the  foundation  of  the  thcistic  argument.  This  will 
be  sufficiently  apparent  from  the  following  quotation, 
which  condenses  the  result  of  a  train  of  argument 
the  object  of  which  is  to  prove  that  what  Mr.  Mill 
calls  the  Volitional  Theory"* — meaning  thereby 

i  *  Mill's  transposition  of  the  Theistic  Principle  into  a  "  Voli- 
tional Theory,"  is  just  one  of  the  many  instances  in  which  the 
real  import  of  the  principle  has  been  obscured  under  a  one-sided 
and  willfully  perverted  nomenclature.  It  is  surely  time  that, 
in  the  search  after  truth,  men  should  cease  to  be  content  to  es- 
cape from  the  pressure  of  an  antagonistic,  doctrine  by  hiding 
its  highest  meaning  under  an  easily-degraded  phraseology ! 
There  is  a  further  misrepresentation  conveyed  by  Mr.  Mill's 
language,  which,  although  it  will  be  afterward  fully  cleared 
up,  it  maybe  well  to  notice  here,  as  rending  to  involve  our  own 
position  in  some  degree  of  doubt.  lie  speaks  of  the  writers, 
against  whom  he  argues,  maintaining  volition  to  be  the  "  direct 
cause  of  all  phenomena" — a  statement  very  readily  suggesting 
a  caricature  of  their  true  doctrine — which  does  not  for  a  mo- 
ment deny  the  fact  of  physical  causes,  in  Mr.  Mill's  sense  of  that 
term,  but  only  that  these  causes,  save  as  taking  their  rise  in  a 
RATIONAL  Will,  and  forming  an  expression  of  such  a  Will,  afford 
no  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  phenomena.  It  is  not  by 
any  means  as  their  direct  and  immediate  cause  (in  the  sense 
of  excluding  physical  causes — general  laws),  but  only  always 


PRINCIPLES.  23 

the  very  truth  which  we  have  laid  down  in  our 
first  proposition — is  incompetent  to  stand  as  the 
only  (ultimate)  explanation  of  phenomena  in  gen- 
eral. We  present  it,  in  the  mean  time,  merely  in 
order  that  the  antagonistic  position  with  which  we 
have  to  deal  may  be  seen  in  its  full  meaning  and 
force. 

"  Though  it  were  granted,"  he  says,*  "  that  every 
phenomenon  has  an  efficient,  and  not  merely  a  phe- 
nomenal cause,  and  that  volition,  in  the  case  of 
the  peculiar  phenomena  which  are  known  to  be  pro- 
duced by  it,  is  that  efficient  cause,  are  we,  therefore, 
to  say  with  these  writers  that  since  we  know  of  no 
other  efficient  cause,  and  ought  not  to  assume  one 
without  evidence,  there  is  no  other,  and  volition  is 
the  direct  cause  of  all  phenomena  ?  A  more  out- 
rageous stretch  of  inference  could  hardly  be  made. 
Because  among  the  infinite  variety  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  nature  there  is  one — namely,  a  particular 
mode  of  action  of  certain  nerves — which  has  for 
its  cause,  and,  as  we  are  now  supposing,  for  its  effi- 
cient cause,  a  state  of  our  mind ;  and  because  this 
is  the  only  efficient  cause  of  which  we  are  con- 
scious, being  the  only  one  of  which,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  we  can  be  conscious,  since  it  is  the  only 
one  which  exists  within  ourselves — does  this  justi- 

as  their  First  or  Original  Cause,  that  Mind  is  spoken  of  as  the 
explanation  of  physical  phenomena. 
*  MILL'S  Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  371.  • 


24  T  II  E  I  S  M . 

fj  us  in  concluding  that  all  other  phenomena  must 
have  the  same  kind  of  efficient  cause  with  that  one 
eminently  special,  narrow,  and  peculiarly  human 
or  animal  phenomenon  ?" 

In  endeavoring  to  verify  the  position  which 
forms  the  argumentative  basis  of  our  Evidence, 
there  are  two  special  lines  of  proof  demanded  of 
us — the  one  relating  directly  to  the  position  itself 
— that  Order  universally  proves  Mind,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  Design  is  a  principle  pervading  the  uni- 
verse; and  the  other  relating  to  a  doctrine  which, 
as  it  appears  to  us,  lies  every  where  involved  in 
the  more  special  theological  principle.  This  prin- 
ciple, in  the  form  announced  in  our  first  proposi- 
tion, undoubtedly  implies  a  definite  doctrine  of 
causation.  In  asserting  the  principle  of  design,  we 
clearly  assert,  at  the  same  time,  that  Mind  alone 
answers  to  our  true,  or  at  least  ultimate,  idea  of 
cause.  We  pronounce  causation,  or  at  least  our 
highest  conception  of  it,  to  imply  efficiency.  But 
does  it  really  do  so  ?  We  find  ourselves  met  on 
this  general  philosophical  ground  as  to  the  true  na- 
ture of  causation,  as  well  as  on  the  ground  of  the 
special  theological  application  which  we  make  of  the 
general  truth.  They  who  dispute  the  theistic  inter- 
pretation of  nature,  no  less  dispute  the  doctrine  of 
efficient  causation,  and  in  fact  base  their  opposition 
to  the  higher  principle  on  this  lower  and  wider 
ground. 


PRINCIPLES.  25 

In  order,  therefore,  fully  to  sustain  our  position, 
we  must  make  it  good  on  this  lower  ground.  Ac- 
cording to  our  whole  view,  the  one  position  is  un- 
tenable apart  from  the  other.  The  two  doctrines 
of  final  causes  and  of  efficient  causation  we  regard 
as  essentially  related.  They  are  not  to  us,  indeed, 
separate  doctrines,  but  only  separate  phases  of  the 
same  fundamental  necessity  of  our  rational  nature : 
the  relation  of  the  two  is  not  that  of  dependency — 
the  one  upon  the  other — but  of  intricacy — the  one 
in  the  other ;  for  while  the  theological  principle 
virtually  asserts  the  philosophical,  the  latter  in  its 
highest  conception,  already  implicitly  contains  the 
former. 

It  is  very  true  that  many  theistic  thinkers,  and 
eminently  among  ourselves,  Dr.  Chalmers,*  have 
not  recognized  this  interchangeable  relation  between 
the  general  doctrine  of  causation  and  the  special 
theological  doctrine.  But  a  fact  of  this  sort  has  no 
further  claim  to  our  consideration,  than  to  lead  us 
to  ponder  more  thoroughly  the  grounds  of  our  own 
conviction ;  and  the  more  this  is  done,  the  more,  we 
feel  confident,  will  the  view  set  forth  in  the  follow- 
ing pages  approve  itself  as  the  only  sound  and  com- 
prehensive one. 

*  Natural  Theology,  vol.  i.  pp.  121-161. 

2  ' 


§  I.— CHAPTER  II. 

DOCTEINE     OF    CAUSATION. 

THERE  have  been  few  if  any  questions  in  Phi- 
losophy more  thoroughly  discussed  than  that  of 
causation.  Especially  since  the  skeptical  genius  of 
Hume  carried  its  pitiless  search  into  the  founda- 
tions of  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  his  day,  and 
exposed  its  genuine  logical  consequences,  has  spec- 
ulative discussion  gathered  round  this  point  as  a 
center,  and  found  unceasing  life  in  it.  It  appears 
to  us  that  at  length  the  ground  may  be  said  to  be 
pretty  well  cleared,  if  not  for  a  settlement  of  the 
question,  yet  for  a  definite  truce  regarding  it.  For 
it  has  become  clearly  apparent  that  the  combatants, 
on  one  side  at  least,  contend,  not  so  much  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  view  held  on  the  other  side,  as 
for  a  further  and  higher  view  in  addition.  The 
two  classes  of  thinkers  are  indeed  fundamentally 
opposed,  but  they  are  not  throughout  opposed.  For 
the  one  class  only  insists  on  carrying  up  the  posi- 
tion of  the  other  into  a  higher,  and,  as  they  think, 
more  comprehensive  Truth  than  the'  other  will  ad- 


DOCTKINE    OF    CAUSATION.  27 

dt.     The  one  feels  impelled  to  look  beyond  the 
lere  physical  view,  and  to  find  every  where  in 
fature  a  further  and  more  sacred  MEANING  than 
the  other  is  content  to  accept. 

It  is  no  longer,  for  example,  disputed  by  any 
school  of  philosophy,  that  all  we.  perceive,  of  the  re- 
lation between  physical  phenomena  is  a  relation  of 
succession.  "It  is  now  universally  admitted  that 
we  have  no  perception  of  the  casual  nexus  in  the 
material  world."*  The  writings  of  Hume  and  of 
Brown,  and  again  of  Mill  in  our  own  day,  have 
been  so  far  successful  in  making  this  plain  beyond 
doubt,  and  exposing,  in  its  precise  form,  the  bear- 
ing of  the  question  between  them  and  the  opposite 
school  of  thinkers.  We  see  events  following 
events  in  regular  succession.  All  that  we  really 
see  and  apprehend  is  the  succession.  "  The  impulse 
of  one  billiard  ball  is  attended  with  motion  in  the 
second*  This  is  the  whole  that  appears  to  the  out- 
ward senses."f  But  is  this  perception  of  sequence 
commensurate  with  our  notion  of  causation  ?  Is  it 
what  we  specially  mean  when  we  express  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect  ?  If  the  measure  of  our 
experience  be  the  measure  of  our  conception,  why 
is  it  that  we  do  not  apply  the  one  universally  to 
the  objects  of  the  other?  To  take  the  often-re- 
peated illustration  of  the  relation  between  day  and 

*  SIE  W.  HAMILTON'S  Discussions,  Appendix,  p.  687. 
f  HUME'S  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 


28  THEISM. 

night.  This  we  apprehend  as  an  invariable  succes- 
sion. Yet  we  never  understand  nor  speak  of  day 
as  the  cause  of  night,  or  the  reverse.  It  must  be 
admitted,  then,  that  our  empirical  apprehension  is 
at  least  not  commensurate  with  our  causal  judg- 
ment. And  this  is  in  fact  admitted  by  Mr.  Mill  in 
reference  to  this  very  relation,  and  the  "  very 
specious  objection"  which  he  acknowledges  has 
been  often  founded  upon  it,  against  his  view  of  the 
subject.  "When  we  define,"  he  says,*  "the  cause 
of  any  thing  to  be  { the  antecedent,  which  it  inva- 
riably follows,'  we  do  not  use  this  phrase  as  ex- 
actly synonymous  with  '  the  atecedent  which  it  in- 
variably has  followed  in  our  past  experience.' 
Such  a  mode  of  conceiving  causation  would  be 
liable  to  the  objection  very  plausibly  urged  by  Dr. 
Eeid — namely,  that,  according  to  this  doctrine, 
night  must  be  the  cause  of  day,  and  day  the  cause 
of  night ;  since  these  phenomena  have  invariably 
succeeded  one  another  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world.  But  it  is  necessary  to  our  using  the  word 
cause,  that  we  should  believe  not  only  thafr  the  an- 
tecedent always  has  been  followed  by  the  conse- 
quent, but  that,  as  long  as  the  present  constitution 
of  things  endures,  it  always  will  be  so,  and  this 
would  not  be  true  of  day  and  night." 

The  concession  forced  upon  Mr.  Mill,  and  ex- 
pressed in  this  passage  is,  we  can  not  help  thinking, 

*  MILL'S  Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  350. 


DOCTEINE    OF    CAUSATION.  29 


remarkable.  It  is  here  clearly  admitted,  that  the 
measure  of  our  observational  experience  is  not  the 
measure  of  the  idea  of  causation,  even  as  held  by 
him.  It  is  not  the  perception  of  uniform  succession 
merely,  but  a  certain  belief  regarding  the  succession, 
which  specially  determines  it  to  be  a  relation  of 
cause  and  effect.  But  what  do  the  opponents  of  a 
mere  sensational  philosophy  every  where  contend 
for,  but  just  the  admission  of  such  an  element  of 
belief,  as  the  determining  element  of  the  idea  of 
causation  ?  The  belief,  no  doubt,  is  with  them  of 
a  very  different  character,  and  arises  in  a^very  dif- 
ferent manner  from  that  represented  by  Mr.  Mill  ; 
but  it  is  significant  how,  in  the  most  earnest  effort 
which  has  been  made  in  our  time  to  resolve  the 
idea  of  causation  into  that  of  mere  antecedent  and 
consequence,  there  should  be  allowed  to  enter  an 
element  of  belief  which  is  confessedly  not  generated 
by  our  mere  observation  of  sequence.  The  se- 
quence, besides  being  invariable,  or,  in  other  words, 
uniformly  observed,  Mr.  Mill  says  must  be  uncon- 
ditional ;  and  day  and  night  is  not  a  sequence  of 
this  character.  "We  do  not  believe  that  night 
will  be  followed  by  day  under  all  imaginable  cir- 
cumstances, but  only  that  it  will  be  so,  provided  the 
sun  rises  above  the  horizon."  According  to  this 
view,  before  we  can  pronounce  any  two  phenomena 
to  be  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  we  must 
not  only  have  observed  the  fact  of  their  invariable 


30  THEISM. 

association,  but  we  must  know  that,  according  to 
the  "  present  constitution  of  things,"*  they  always 
will  be  associated.  "We  must  understand  the  con- 
ditions of  the  sequence  so  thoroughly,  as  to  com- 
prehend whether  they  form  a  part  of  "  the  general 
laws  of  matter,"  before  we  can  rightly  pronounce 


*  There  seems  to  be  an  inaccuracy  and  misapplication  of 
language  here,  singular  in  a  writer  generally  so  clear-sighted 
and  accurate  aa  Mr.  Mill.  For  surely  the  regular  rising  of  the 
Bun  above  the  horizon,  or,  in  other  words,  the  diurnal  revolu- 
tion of  the  earth,  is,  if  any  thing  can  be  said  to  be  so,  a  part  of 
"the  present  constitution  of  things."  According  to  this  "con- 
stitution," then,  it  may  be  said  to  be  truly  known  that  night 
will  always  be  followed  by  day.  The  terms  of  this  sequence, 
even  on  his  own  interpretation,  are  therefore  unconditional,  and 
yet  we  do  not  regard  them  as  cause  and  effect. 

We  can,  no  doubt,  conceive  the  sun  not  to  rise  above  the  hori- 
zon, compatibly  with  the  "  general  laws  of  matter,"  a  phrase  by 
which  Mr.  Mill  makes  his  meaning  more  distinct  and  unequivo- 
cal. But,  in  the  first  place,  the  "general  laws  of  matter,"  while 
they  MAY  be  conceived  by  us  apart  from  such  a  special  result 
of  .their  operation,  can  yet  be  only  said  to  be  really  known  to 
us  in  their  varied  actual  results,  apart  from  which  they  are 
.simply  abstractions;  nonentities,  on  a  mere  physical  view  of 
things ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  we  can  easily  conceive,  it  ap- 
pears to  us,  the  general  laws  of  matter  themselves  to  cease,  or 
be  entirely  changed.  The  unconditionalness,  therefore,  which 
he  considers  to  attach  to  them,  and  which  he  believes  a  "  dis- 
tinction of  first-rate  importance  for  clearing  up  the  notion  of 
Cause,"  does  not  seem,  even  in  their  case,  to  be  available  to  any 
further  extent  than  in  reference  to  the  constant  experience  re- 
specting day  and  night.  The  fact  is,  as  shown  in  the  text,  that 
the  constant  succession  of  day  and  night  is  not  regarded  in  the 
light  of  cause  and  effect,  simply  because  it  is  not  succession,  but 
something  else,  and  quite  distinct,  with  which  the  mind, 
directly  and  initially,  concerns  itself  in  pronouncing  this  re- 
lation. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  31 

one  term  of  the  sequence  to  be  the  cause  of  the 
other. 

But  if  it  were  not  already  apparent  in  the  out- 
set of  Mr.  Mill's  discussion,  this  conclusion  were 
enough  to  show  that  the  subject  with  which  he 
concerns  himself,  under  the  name  of  causation,  and 
that  which  is  commonly  meant  under  that  name, 
and  in  our  view  is  alone  entitled  to  it,  are  quite 
different.  While,  under  this  name,  he  really  speaks 
of  the  order  which,  according  to  the  "  general  laws 
of  matter,"  obtains  among  the  phenomena  of  na- 
ture— the  "invariable  and  unconditional"  deperd- 
ence  which,  in  virtue  of  these  laws,  subsists  amo:  ig 
physical  sequences — the  intellectual  common  sen?  se, 
by  causation,  does  not  mean  to  express  any  thing 
of  this  sort.  It  does  not  concern  itself  with  tae 
special  conditions  under  which  phenomena  emerge, 
so  as  to  determine  their  invariable  and  uncon- 
ditional antecedents  (in  Mr.  Mill's  language,  their 
causes) ;  but  on  the  emergence  of  any  phenomenon, 
the  appearance  of  any  change,  it  simply  says  that 
it  is  caused;  meaning  by  this,  that  the  change,  does 
not  originate  in  itself,  but  in  something  else.  It 
says  this  wholly  irrespective  of  the  special  sources 
or  conditions  of  the  change ;  and  says  it  equally, 
although  it  should  never  learn  any  thing  of  these 
sources  or  conditions.  It  pronounces,  in  short,  not 
what  is  the  relation  among  observed  phenomena, 
whether  lying  within  the  sphere  of  our  observa- 


32  THEISM. 

tion  or  not,  are  related.  Springing  from  even  a 
single  basis  of  experience,  this  judgment  goes  forth 
without  hesitation  into  the  whole  world  of  reality, 
and  every  where  proclaims  its  validity ;  and  it  is 
this  judgment  which  constitutes  to  the  common 
sense  the  doctrine  of  causation. 

It  is  of  importance  to  understand  what  is  the 
real  difference  which  thus  exists  between  sensa- 
tionalists of  the  school  of  Hume  and  Mill,  and 
those  who  contend  for  a  deeper  meaning  in  causa- 
tion than  they  allow.  Artfully  shifting  the  ques- 
tion of  causation  into  the  domain  of  physical  ob- 
servation, they  come,  in  fact,  to  treat  of  something 
quite  special,  which,  under  whatever  protestations, 
they  in  the  "end  assume  to  be  the  whole  matter,  so 
far  as  it  has  any  intelligible  relation  to  the  human 
mind.  Mr.  Mill,  for  example,  while  declaring  that 
he  is  "  in  no  way  concerned"  in  the  question  of 
efficient  causes,  and  that  he  simply  passes  it  by, 
has  no  sooner  laid  down  his  own  "  law  of  causa- 
tion," than  .he  turns  to  contemplate  in  its  light  the 
doctrine  of  causation  as  commonly  understood,  and 
on  the  strength  of  his  own  principles  to  engage  in 
an  elaborate  refutation  of  this  doctrine.  Now,  this 
does  not  seem  to  us  to  be  realty  the  fairest  way  of 
dealing  with  a  subject  of  so  much  importance.  To 
profess  to  have  in  view  simply  the  discussion  of 
physical  causes  and  effects — as  to  the  relation  of 
which  the~e  is  really  no  dispute — and  yet  to  pass 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  83 

over  from  this  to  the  truth  of  causation  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  human  knowledge,  can  only  tend  to  mis- 
lead the  reader,  and  embroil  still  further  the  meta- 
physical controversy  which  Mr.  Mill  is  desirous  of 
avoiding.  The  Positivist  must  either  abide  in  the 
domain  of  physical  phenomena — where  none  deny 
that  all  which  comes  directly  within  the  sphere  of 
human  knowledge  is  mere  antecedence  and  conse- 
quence— or  he  must  be  prepared  to  take  up  the 
general  fact  of  causation,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the 
common  intellectual  consciousness,  and  show  it  to 
be  coincident  in  import  with  the  law  of  mere  suc- 
cession. It  is  on  this  ground  of  common  belief 
that  the  question  must  be  discussed.  "We  have 
already  so  far  seen  what  this  belief  signifies.  Let 
us  still  more  precisely  fix  its  import. 

When,  on  the  appearance  of  any  change,  we  in- 
stinctively pronounce  it  to  have  a  cause,  what  do 
we  really  mean  ?  Do  we  affirm  merely  that  some 
other  thing  has  gone  before  the  observed  phenom- 
enon ?  Is  priority  the  constitutive  element  of  our 
intellectual  judgment  ?  Is  it  not  rather  something 
quite  different  ?  Is  not  our  judgment  characterist- 
ically to  this  effect — that  some  other  thing  has  not 
only  preceded  but  produced  the  change  we  con- 
template ?  Nay,  is  it  not  this  element  of  produc- 
tion that  we  peculiarly  mean  to  express  in  the  use 
of  the  term  "  cause"  ?  Succession  is  no  doubt  also 
involvM,  but  it  is  not  the  relation  of  succession 
2* 


34  THEISM. 

with  which  the  mind,  in  the  supposed  judgment 
is  directly  and  initially  concerned,  but  rather  the 
relation  of  power.  That  when  we  speak  of  cause 
and  effect,  we  express  merely  the  relation  of  con- 
junction between  phenomena  of  antecedence  and 
consequence  in  any  defined  sense,  is  something  of 
which  no  ingenuity  of  sophistry  will  ever  be  able 
to  persuade  the  common  mind.  It  matters  not  in 
the  least  degree  that  it  can  be  so  clearly  proved 
that  nothing  intervenes  between  the  simple  facts 
observed,  that  all  we  see  is  the  sequence  of  the 
.phenomena.  This  is  not  in  dispute.  Only,  the 
intellectual  common  sense  insists  on  recognizing  a 
deeper  relation  among  phenomena  than  mere  se- 
quence. It  accepts  the  order  of  succession,  which 
it  is  the  special  function  of  Science  to  trace  every 
where  to  its  most  general  expression  ;  but  it  more- 
over says  of  this  order,  that  it  is  throughout  pro- 
duced, or,  in  other  words,  that  it  is  only  explicable 
as  involving  a  further  element  of  power.  That 
this  is  really  the  import  of  the  intellectual  judg- 
ment which  we  pronounce  in  speaking  of  cause 
and  effect — to  which  the  very  words  themselves 
testify  in  an  unmistakable  manner — is  so  clear, 
that  it  is  now  admitted  by  every  school  of  philos- 
ophy which  does  not  rest  on  a  basis  of  materialism, 
and  has  even  been  conceded  by  writers  of  this 
school,  however  irresolvable  on  their  principles.* 

*  See  LEWES' 'Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  vol.  i  v.  p.  47,  seq. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  35 

Causation,  therefore,  implies  power.  What  we 
mean  by  a  cause  is  something  quite  different  from 
a  mere  antecedent,  however  we  may  define  the 
conditions  of  its  relation  to  the  consequent.  It  is 
peculiarly  an  AGENT. 

But  in  order  to  see  this  more  fully,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  consider  whence  we  have  the  idea  of 
power,  which  we  have  seen  to  constitute  the  main 
element  of  causation.  That  this  idea  is  not  derived 
from  without — that  it  does  not  come  through  any 
phase  of  sensational  experience — is  already  clear 
in  the  fact  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  we  only 
perceive  succession — that  we  are  only  conversant, 
through  the  senses,  with  the  two  terms  of  a  se- 
quence. But  if  not  from  without,  it  must  be  frois 
within ;  we  must  have  the  idea  of  power  given  us 
in  our  own  mental  experience.  This  we  hold  to 
be  the  fact ;  and  recent  psychological  analysis  has 
pretty  sufficiently  explained  the  more  special  ori- 
gin of  this  prime  intellectual  element.  It  flows 
from  the  depths  of  our  self-consciousness ;  or,  more 
truly  speaking,  it  is  nothing  else  than  the  ideal 
projection  of  our  self-consciousness.  With  the 
first  dawn  of  mind  we  apprehend  ourselves  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  objective  phenomena  surrounding 
us ;  the  Ego  emerges,  face  to  face,  with  the  nor.- 
Ego.  And  in  this  springing  forth  )f  self,  so  far 
back  in  the  mental  history  as  to  elude  all  trace,  is 
primarily  given  the  idea  of  power. 


36  THEISM. 

What  is  commonly  called  the  Will,  therefore, 
is,  according  to  this  view,  the  ultimate  source  or 
fountain  of  the  notion  of  causation.  We  appre- 
hend ourselves  as  agents,  and  in  this  apprehension 
we  have  already,  in  the  fullest  sense,  the  idea  of 
cause.  Had  we  not  this  apprehension,  it  seems 
impossible  that  we  could  have  ever  risen  above 
sequence,  as  the  obvious  fact  given  us  in  outward 
observation.  With  this  apprehension  lying  at  the 
very  root  of  our  being,  and  constituting  it  essen- 
tially, it  is  equally  impossible  that  we  can  hold  by 
that  fact  as  furnishing  the  exhaustive  conception 
of  the  Universe.  According  to  the  radical  and 
imperative  character  of  our  mental  constitution, 
we  must  recognize  a  deeper  life  than  mere  se- 
quence, however  grand  and  orderly,  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature ;  and  this  deeper  life  is  just 
what  we  mean  by  a  cause.  Not  sequency,  there- 
fore, but  agency,  or,  in  other  words,  efficiency,  is 
the  attribute  commensurate  with  our  notion  of 
causation. 

The  question  before  us  then  really  passes  into 
the  old  one  as  to  the  origin  of  our  knowledge. 
Let  it  only  be  admitted  that  our  knowledge  is  the 
product  of  a  spiritual  as  well  as  a  material  factor, 
and  then  it  is  quite  beside  the  question  to  argue 
that  because  cause,  according  to  our  interpretation 
of  it,  is  not  given  in  external  nature,  the  notion  of 
it  is  not  a  valid  and  real  portion  of  human  knowl-= 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  37 

edge ;  on  the  very  contrary,  it  becomes,  in  such  a 
case,  only  an  obvious  and  expected  conclusion  that 
we  should  find  more  in  outward  phenomena  than 
they,  so  to  speak,  contain.  The  subjective  brings 
its  element  of  knowledge  as  well  as  the  objective  ; 
and  it  is  not  merely  what  we  apprehend  by  the 
senses,  but  what,  through  the  whole  mental  life 
awakened  in  us  by  the  original  contact  of  subject 
and  object,  spirit  and  matter,  we  intuitively  know 
or  believe  to  be  the  truth — that  we  must  hold  as 
the  truth.  The  only  available  argument  against 
this  position — save  on  a  basis  of  pure  materialism — 
would  be  to  dispute  the  reality  of  any  such  primi- 
tive mental  experience  as  we  have  asserted — the 
fact  of  that  consciousness  of  agency,  which  we 
have  assumed  as  indisputable. 

It  is  of  great  importance  that  the  view  which  we 
have  thus  endeavored  to  set  forth  should  be  com- 
prehended in  its  precise  import,  with  reference 
both  to  certain  objections  which  have  been  urged 
against  it,  and  to  the  final  conclusion  to  which  it 
seems  to  us  to  lead.  It  will  be  observed  that  we 
trace  the  idea  of  causation,  in  its  primitive  origin, 
to  our  self-consciousness,  our  apprehension  of  our- 
selves as  distinct  activities,  not  carried  away  in,  but 
exercising  a  reaction  upon,  the  flow  of  physical  se- 
quences. This  apprehension,  in  its  most  obscure 
form,  involves  what  has  been  specially  called  the 
Will.  The  apprehension  of  ourselves  is  and  can  be 


38  THEISM. 

nothing  else  than  the  apprehension  of  our  personal 
voluntary  activity.  In  its  most  mature  and  de- 
veloped form,  this  apprehension  becomes  what  is 
called  the  consciousness  of  free  will.  The  causal 
idea;  however  is  not  dependent  on  any  particular 
manifestations  of  this  highest  form  of  our  activity. 
It  is  already  present  in  its  dawn  in  our  primitive 
self-consciousness.  It  awakens  side  by  side  with 
the  Ego  ;  and  is  therefore  truly,  as  M.  Cousin  calls 
it,  the  "  primary  idea." 

The  clear  perception  of  this  will  clear  away  some 
difficulties  from  the  view  exhibited.  It  has  been 
represented,  for  example,  as  if  the  advocates  of  the 
theory  of  efficient  causation  held  the  notion  to  be 
given  altogether  independently  of  experience  in 
the  very  conception  of  voluntary  action,  apart  from 
its  exercise.  They  have  been  held  as  maintaining 
that  the  "feeling  of  energy  or  force  inherent  in  an 
act  of  will  is  knowledge  a  priori ;  assurance  prior 
to  experience  that  we  have  the  power  of  causing 
effects."  *  But,  so  far  as  we  understand  this  state- 
ment at  all,  it  seems  to  us  to  imply  something 
which  could  not  well  be  deliberately  maintained 
by  any  one,  however  an  incautious  use  of  expres- 
sions may  have  led  the  writer  to  suppose  so.  It 
implies  something,  certainly,  which  we  are  so  far 
from  maintaining,  that  it  appears  to  us  to  be  simply 
absurd  and  inconceivable.  To  speak  of  any  mental 

*  MILL'S  Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  860. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  39 


possession  as  prior  to  or  independent  of  experience, 
in  the  right  and  comprehensive  meaning  of  that 
term,  is  to  speak  of  something  which,  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  is  impossible.  Our  consciousness 
only  comes  into  being  under  experience-conditions. 
All  our  mental  life  only  arises  under  them ;  and 
of  what  it  would  be  or  contain  apart  from  them, 
we  can  have  no  conception.  Of  an  "  assurance 
prior  to  experience,  that  we  have  the  power  of 
causing  effects,"  we  therefore  know  nothing.  Ex- 
perience is  already  present  in  the  first  act  of  con- 
sciousness, and  our  idea  of  cause  flows  from  the 
primitive  awakening  of  consciousness  under  the 
contact  of  experience.  It  is  already  given  in  the 
primary  apprehension  of  our  personal  existence. 
It  may,  therefore,  certainly  be  held  before  the 
mind  apart  from  special  results ;  but  apart  from 
voluntary  activity,  as  such,  and  in  a  true  sense,  it 
is  inconceivable. 

Again,  with  reference  to  a  special  objection  of 
more  importance,  the  view  we  have  presented 
seems  to  render  it  inapplicable.  The  objection  in 
question  deserves  examination,  as  having  been 
taken  up  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  and  urged  by  him 
against  our  doctrine.  The  weakness,  however, 
which  Sir  William  assails  successfully,  does  not  lie 
in  the  doctrine  itself,  but  only  in  the  special  state- 
ment of  it  which  is  the  subject  of  his  criticism. 
This  statement  is  that  of  a  distinguished  French 


40  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

philosopher,  M.  de  Biran,  who  has"  certainly  the 
eminent  merit  of  having,  in  the  most  elaborate 
manner,  fixed  attention  on  the  theory  of  causation 
under  discussion.  It  is  to  this  effect:  "I  will  to 
move  my  arm,  and  I  move  it."  This  complex  fact 
gives  us  on  analysis :  1.  The  consciousness  of  an 
act  of  will ;  2.  The  consciousness  of  motion  pro- 
duced ;  3.  The  consciousness  of  a  relation  of  the 
motion  to  the  volition.  This  relation  is  in  no 
respect  a  simple  relation  of  succession.  The  motion 
not  merely  follows  our  will,  or  appears  in  conjunc- 
tion with  it,  but  it  is  consciously  produced  by  it. 
The  idea  of  power  or  cause  is  thus  evolved.  Sir 
W.  Hamilton  objects  to  the  theory  thus  laid  down, 
that  the  empirical  fact  on  which  it  is  founded  is  in- 
correct. "For,"  he  says,"*  "between  the  overt  fact 
of  corporeal  movement,  which  we  perceive,  and  the 
internal  act  of  the  will  to  move,  of  which  we  are 
self-conscious,  there  intervenes  a  series  of  inter- 
mediate agencies,  of  which  we  are  wholly  unaware ; 
consequently,  we  can  have  no  consciousness,  as 
this  hypothesis  maintains,  of  any  causal  connection 
between  the  extreme  links  of  this  chain — that  is, 
between  the  volition  to  move  and  the  arm  moving." 
The  same  objection  to  the  general  doctrine  is  hinted 
at  by  Mr.  Mill,f  and  stated  fully,  and  with  all  his 
usual  ingenuity,  by  Hume,  in  his  famous  chapter 
on  the  idea  of  "  necessary  connection." 

*  Phil.  Discussions,  Appendix,  p.  588.      f  Logic,  pp.  361,  371. 


ide 
sul 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  41 

Now,  it  is  not  to  be  disputed  that  the  point  upon 
which  this  objection  rests  is  indubitable — viz.,  that 
it  is  only  through  the  intermediate  agencies  of  the 
nerves  and  muscles  that  the  act 'of  volition  goes 
forth  in  corporeal  movement.  Volitions  produce 
nervous  action,  and  this  action  again  expresses 
itself  in  outward  movement.  We  have  not,  there- 
fore, and  can  not  have,  any  proper  consciousness 
of  this  movement.  The  volition  or  act  of  will 
itself  is  all  of  which  we  are  properly  conscious. 
But  in  this  act,  as  we  conceive,  we  have  already 
sufficient  ba^sis  for  our  theory.  For  what  is  this 
simple  movement  of  the  will  but  the  Ego  express- 
ing itself?  And  in  this  original  act  of  self-expres- 
sion we  have  already,  according  to  our  view,  the 
idea  of  cause.  Will  it  be  said  that,  apart  from  re- 

tarit  motion  or  special  activity,  we  could  have 
no  evidence  of  such  self-expression  ?  It  may  be 
readily  granted  that,  had  we  possessed  no  experi- 
ence of  volition  passing  into  activity  ;  had,  in 
truth,  the  present  constitution  of  things  been  entirely 
different  from  what  it  is — for  this  is  really  what  is 
asserted — in  such  a  supposed  case  there  is  no  cer- 
tainty that  we  could  have  had  such  evidence,  or 
that — which  is  the  same  thing — volition  could  have 
been  to  us  any  longer  a  fact.  We  can  not  tell ; 
we  have  simply  again  to  reply  that  we  pretend  to 
no  elements  of  knowledge  apart  from  experience 
in  the  sense  here  intended.  All  we  know  is,  and 


42  THEISM. 

can  be,  only  known  to  us  within  the  conditions  of 
our  actual  being  ;  in  other  words,  within  the  sphere 
of  experience.  What  we  might  or  might  not  have 
known  out  of  this  sphere,  it  is  utterly  idle  to  con- 
jecture, as  we  can  not,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
transcend  it,  and  survey  ourselves  from  a  point 
above  it.  Thus,  in  the  present  case,  the  sense  of 
will  or  power  is  to  us  a  fact,  given  in  the  first  dawn 
of  self-consciousness,  and  repeated  in  every  mo- 
ment of  self-consciousness.  It  is  implied  in  every 
forth-putting  of  our  being.  It  lies  at  its  root,  and 
our  whole  mental  life  is  only  a  continual  passing 
of  it  into  activity.  That  which  is  specially  called 
the  Will  is,  as  already  represented,  implicitly  con- 
tained in  this  original  affirmation  of  self,  in  which 
all  our  knowledge  begins.  Special  acts  of  freedom 
are  merely  special  manifestations  of  a  power 
quickened  in  us,  or,  more  truly,  which  constitutes 
us  (the  Me)  from  the  first.  It  is  by  no  means  neces- 
sary, therefore,  that  we  should  be  directly  conscious 
of  corporeal  movement,  as  the  special  result  of  an 
act  of  volition,  in  the  sense  set  forth  by  M.  de 
Biran,  and  questioned  by  Sir  W.  Hamilton  and 
others,  before  we  can  attain  the  idea  of  cause. 
This  idea  emerges  far  more  deeply  in  our  spiritual 
life  than  is  thus  implied,  and  is  quite  independent 
of  such  special  realizations  as  are  here  connected 
with  it. 

Let  us  review,  then,  the  conclusion  at  which  we 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  43 

have  arrived;  the  meaning  of  causation  as  thus 
determined.  A  cause  we  have  found  to  be  truly 
coincident  with  an  agent;  to  have  its  primitive 
type  in  the  Ego,  the  living  root  oJ^ur  being  ;  and 
to  be  specially  represented  in  that  which  consti- 
tutes the  highest  expression  of  our  being,  Free 
Will.  A  cause,  therefore,  implies  Mind.  More 
definitely,  and  in  its  full  conception,  it  implies  a 
rational  will. 

Let  this  conclusion  be  fairly  pondered,  and  it 
will  be  found  to  sustain  itself  irrefragably.  The 
Ego,  which  in  its  first-drawn  and  highest  life 
alone  gives  us  the  idea  of  cause,  is  simply  the 
rational  being  which  we  call  by  the  name  of 
Mind.  It  is  this  being,  no  doubt,  apprehended 
predominantly  on  the  side  of  activity.  But  this 
activity,  apart  from  the  reason  in  which  it  inheres, 
and  which  it  expresses,  is  nothing.  We  can  never 
subtract  the  one  element  and  leave  the  other.  We 
have  been  in  the  habit,  indeed,  of  speaking  of  dif- 
ferent mental  faculties  ;  but  the  mind  is  really  one, 
and  not  a  separable  congeries  of  powers.  Free 
will  is  and  can  be  nothing  else,  therefore,  than  the 
highest  or  consummate  expression  of  our  rational 
being  or  mind ;  and  a  rational  will  the  only  fully 
answering  idea  to  that  of  Cause.  The  one  idea  is 
the  only  commensurate  of  the  other.  The  latter 
only  exhausts  itself,  and  finds  rest,  in  the  former. 

We  will  now  be  able  to  understand  the  true 


44  THEISM. 

character  of  the  causation  which  we  apprehend  in 
nature.  In  the  light  of  our  spiritual  consciousness, 
we  every  where  perceive  in  nature  a  deeper  mean- 
ing than  it  contains.  We  apprehend  a  living 
power  in  its  continual  flow.  This  is  the  general 
expression  of  what  reason  demands.  It  never  stops 
short  of  this.  But  already  it  contains  a  higher  and 
more  explicit  truth.  Already,  in  its  lowest  indica- 
tions, it  points  to  one  original,  comprehending 
Will.  The  savage  or  childish  apprehension  of 
nature,  as  animated  in  its  different  movements  by 
separate  voluntary  agents  like  ourselves,*  is  a  mere 
dim  and  temporary  expression  of  the  rational  ne- 
cessity which  knows  no  satisfaction  till,  driven  up- 
ward, it  rests  in  the  idea  of  one  all-pervading 
power — an  Ultimate  Cause. 

According  to  this  whole  view,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  mere  physical  causation.  What  is  so  de- 
nominated is  of  course  a  reality  ;  but  inasmuch  as 
it  is  only  in  virtue  of  our  spiritual  life  that  we 
could  ever  find  a  cause  in  nature,  this  term  is  truly 
inapplicable  to  physical  phenomena  per  se :  nature 
can  not  give  what  it  does  not  contain.  Physical 
causes,  apart  from  the  idea  of  a  will  in  which  they 
originate,  and  which  they  manifest,  have  no  mean- 
ing. Eemove  the  one  idea,  and  the  other  disap- 
pears. It  is  assuredly  only  in  the  reflection  of  a 
POWER  beyond  them,  and  in  which  they  are  con- 

*  COUSIN,  On  Locke,  p.  166:  Ed.  Didier;  Paris,  1847. 


. 

.i_™~,3       4.1, 


DOCTRINE    OF    CAUSATION.  45 

tained,  that  such  causes  are  or  can  be  to  us  any 
thing  but  antecedent  phenomena.  It  is  only  as 
the  expression  of  such  a  Will  or  Power  that  the 
physical  order  of  the  universe  is  recognized  as 
caused.  And  this  recognition  is  truly  ineradica- 
ble and  necessary  ;  in  no  way  affected  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  science ;  still  asserting  itself  by  the 
side  of  the  most  extended  of  these  discoveries. 
Let  science  expose  the  domain  of  physical  order 
as  it  majr,  Will  is  still  present  as  its  implicate  and 
only  explanation.  And  this  Will,  according  to 
what  we  have  already  said,  is  no  mere  naked  po- 
tentiality. We  know  nothing  of  Will  apart  from 
Keason ;  the  one  is  to  us  merely  the  peculiarly 
active,  the  other  the  peculiarly  intelligent,  side  of 
the  same  spiritual  energy.  They  unite  and  form 
one  in  what  we  comprehensively  call  Mind,  which 
we  therefore  recognize  as  the  only  adequate  source 
and  explanation  of  the  universe. 

It  will  be  observed  that  we  have  confined  our- 
selves to  the  fact  of  causation — what  it  implies. 
Our  aim  has  been  to  find  a  true  and  final  explana- 
tion of  what  we  mean  by  a  "  cause."  The  principle 
of  causality,  in  its  characteristic  of  irresistibleness 
and  necessity,  has  been  rather  assumed  than  dealt 
with  :  and  rightly  so  ;  for  the  principle,  under  one 
form  of  explanation  or  another,  can  not  be  said  to 
be  in  dispute.  The  real  and  important  subject  of 
dispute  is  unquestionably  what  the  principle — ad- 


46  THEISM. 

mitted  to  be  one  which  conditions  human  Intelli- 
gence— involves.  What  is  its  import?  Does  it 
lead  us  upward  merely  from  one  link  of  sequences 
to  another  ?  or  does  it  necessitate  our  finding,  in 
all  sequences,  a  higher  element  in  which  alone 
they  inhere?  Is  Cause,  in  short,  Antecedence  or 
Power?  This  is  the  essential  question,  and  it  is 
this  to  which  we  have  endeavored  to  give  an  an- 
swer. 


§  L— CHAPTER    III. 

• 

DOCTKINE     OF     FINAL     CAUSES. 

THE  conclusion  of  the  preceding  chapter  already 
clearly  pointed  to  what  we  mean  by  the  doctrine 
of  Final  Causes.  The  idea  of  causation  we  found 
to  resolve  itself  into  that  of  the  operation  of  a 
rational  will  or  mind  in  nature;  and  this  opera- 
tion, looked  at  deductively  from  a  theological  point 
of  view,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  doctrine 
before  us.  But  while  thus  implicitly  given  in  our 
previous  argument,  this  doctrine,  in  its  distinctive 
form,  deserves  from  us  a  further  and  more  atten- 
tive consideration.  It  deserves  this  especially  on 
account  of  the  obscurity  and  misrepresentations  in 
which  it  has  been  involved. 

There  is  no  doctrine  which  has  been  more  mis- 
understood. The  scientific  applications  of  it  have 
been  confounded  with  its  genuine  theological  im- 
port, and  abuses  resulting  from  the  former  per- 
versely passed  over  to  the  discredit  of  the  latter. 
What  it  really  signifies,  what  is  the  comprehensive 


48  THEISM. 

meaning  in  which  the  doctrine  must  be  held,  if  it  is 
to  be  held  at  all ;  has  been  often  as  little  understood 
by  its  supporters  as  by  its  opponents. 

The  notion  of  Final  Causes,  for  example,  is  fre- 
quently represented  as  if  limited  to  organic  or 
physiological  phenomena.  In  a  purely  scientific 
relation,  viewed  as  a  method  of  scientific  discovery, 
it  may  be  rightly  so  limited ;  although,  even  in  this 
respect,  it  seems  only  an  absurd  perversion  of  the 
doctrine,  and  not  the  doctrine  itself,  which  can  be 
truly  held  as  an  invalid  guide  of  inquiry  in  any 
department  of  nature.  It  is  only  the  confusion  of 
its  genuine  meaning  with  an  impertinent  and  bar- 
ren curiosity — the  very  opposite  of  its  inquiring 
and  reverent  gaze — which  can  render  it  abusively 
applicable  to  any  order  of  phenomena.*  But  cer- 
tainly, whatever  view  may  be  held  on  this  point, 
there  can  not  remain  any  doubt  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  really  understand  the  doctrine,  that,  in 
its  higher  theological  meaning  and  relation,  it  is 
equally  applicable  to  all  orders  of  phenomena,  or- 
ganic and  inorganic.  It  is  true  that,  even  in  this 
higher  relation,  the  doctrine  has  been  especially 
applied  to  the  organic  products  of  creation,  so  that 
the  argument  from  Design  or  Final  Causes  is  prob- 


*  This  is  the  simple  explanation  of  Lord  Bacon's  frequently- 
quoted  disparagement  of  Final  Causes.  It  was  not  the  doc- 
trine itself,  in  any  true  sense  of  it,  but  only  the  scholastic  abuse 
of  it,  that  he  condemned. 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         49 


ably  interpreted  by  many,  if  not  most  minds,  with 
exclusive  reference  to  these  products — the  wonder- 
ful structures  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdom. 
But  this  has  simply  arisen  from  the  fact,  that  design 
is  capable  of  being  more  conspicuously  traced  in 
these  structures  than  in  the  more  general  and  com- 
prehensive phenomena  presented  to  us  by  the  in-* 
organic  kingdom.  Assuredly  it  will  not  for  a  mo- 
ment bear  to  be  affirmed  that  the  principle  of  de- 
sign, rightly  apprehended  in  the  fundamental  form 
in  which  alone  it  concerns  the  theistic  argument, 
has  any  real  application  to  the  one  class  of  phe- 
nomena which  it  has  not  to  the  other.  It  may 
have,  in  the  one  case,  a  more  manifest  application, 
and  one,  therefore,  more  effective  for  purposes  of 
popular  argumentation ;  but,  beyond  all  question, 
there  are  no  logical  grounds  on  which  the  princi- 
ple can  sustain  itself  in  the  one  case  and  not  in  the 
other.  These  grounds  are  equally  valid  or  invalid 
in  both  cases.  Supposing  we  admit  them,  design, 
the  operation  of  Mind,  is  every  where  recognized 
in  nature.  Supposing  we  reject  them,  every  such 
conception  as  that  of  "  design,"  or  " final  cause," 
"end"  or  "purpose,"  disappears  from  nature.* 

*  The  different  modifications  of  the  doctrine  of  Final  Causes 
form  a  very  interesting  subject,  were  we  reviewing  the  doctrine 
historically,  instead  of  expounding  the  right  view  of  it.  The 
double  relation  of  the  doctrine  has  of  course  attracted  attention, 
yet  without  any  definite  effort,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  to  bring 
into  clear  harmony  the  more  general  doctrine,  and  the  special 

3 


50  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

Let  us  then  look  still  more  closely  at  these 
grounds,  that  we  may  be  thoroughly  satisfied  of 
their  validity.  Why  is  it  that  we  apprehend  every 
where  in  phenomena  of  order  the  operation  of  a 
rational  will  or  mind  ?  Simply  because  we  can  not 
help  doing  so ;  because  the  laws  of  our  rational 
being  compel  us  to  do  so.  These  will  not  permit 
us  to  rest  short  of  Mind  as  an  ultimate  explanation 
of  such  phenomena.  The  theistic  position,  there- 
fore, is  based  on  an  inherent  rational  necessity. 
"We  do  not  know  where  it  could  be  so  strongly 
based.  We  do  not  know,  indeed,  where  else  it 
could  be  based. 

But  this  strong  foundation  is  not  conceded  to  us 
without  controversy.  How  plainly  the  right  and 
dignity  thus  claimed  for  Mind  are  repudiated  by 
a  certain  school  of  thinkers,  we  have  already  seen ; 
and  the  special  arguments  by  which  our  position 

form  in.  which  it  has  been  applied  in  physiology.  Boyle  and 
Stewart  both  point  to  the  respective  theological  and  scientific 
uses  of  the  doctrine,  but  they  do  not  expound  the  relation  of  the 
latter  to  the  former,  which  is  all-important  both  for  the  in- 
terests of  theology  and  the  validity  of  the  equally  disputed 
scientific  principle.  K"or  do  they  concern  themselves  with  the 
consideration  of  the  more  general  and  the  more  special  form  in 
which,  even  in  a  purely  theological  point  of  view,  the  doctrine 
admits  of  being  apprehended  and  applied.  Any  obscurity  that 
may  seem  to  rest  on  these  respective  bearings  of  the  doctrine  is, 
we  trust,  sufficiently  cleared  up  in  the  course  of  our  discussion, 
and  especially  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  where  the  peculiar  sig- 
nificance of  the  action  of  design  in  organic  phenomena  receives 
attention. 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         51 

has  been  assailed  bj  the  same  able  writer  with 
whom  we  have  already  engaged,  and  who  so  emi« 
nently,  in  the  present  day,  represents  the  school  in 
England,  certainly  deserve  examination.  Ttieso 
arguments  no  doubt  originate  in  a  fundamental  op- 
position of  philosophical  principle,  to  which  the 
discussion  must  always  at  length  be  driven  back, 
and  to  which  we  might,  therefore,  confine  ourselves ; 
this  opposition  being  neither  more  nor  less  than  the 
old  one  of  Spiritualism  and  Empiricism,  Platonism 
and  Epicureanism.  Yet  it  may  serve  in  some  re- 
spects to  strengthen  our  ground  and  elucidate  the 
truth,  to  examine  the  more  special  reasoning  of 
Mr.  Mill. 

It  is  wholly  denied  by  this  writer  that  the  ten- 
dency to  find  Mind  every  where  in  nature  rests  on 
an  ineradicable  necessity  of  reason.  This  is  simply 
"  the  instinctive  philosophy  of  the  human  mind  in 
its  earliest  stage,  before  it  has  become  familiar  with 
any  other  invariable  sequences  than  those  between 
its  own  volitions  and  its  voluntary  acts."*  .  .  . 
"  Sequences  entirely  physical  and  material,  as  soon 
as  they  had  become  sufficiently  familiar  to  the  hu- 
man mind,  came  to  be  thought  perfectly  natural, 
and  were  regarded  not  only  as  needing  no  explana- 
tion, but  as  being  capable  of  affording  it  to  others, 
and  even  of  serving  as  the  ultimate  explanation  of 
things  in  general."f  And,  as  illustrations  of  this, 

*  Logic,  voL  i.  p.  365 ;  second  edition.  f  Hid.,  p.  366. 


52  T  H  E  I  ,S  tt  . 

are  instanced  the  early  Greek  philosophers,  some 
of  whom  held  that  Moisture,  and  others  that  Air, 
was  the  universal  cause.  These  are  brought  for- 
ward as  examples  to  show  that  mankind,  so  far 
from  regarding  the  action  of  matter  upon  matter 
as  inconceivable,  have  even  rested  satisfied  with 
some  material  element  as  a  final  principle  of  ex- 
planation. Others — and  he  mentions  Leibnitz  and 
the  Cartesians — are  also  stated  to  have  been  so 
little  of  our  way  of  thinking,  that  they  found  the 
"  action  of  mind  upon  matter  to  be  itself  the  grand 
inconceivability,"  to  get  over  which  they  were 
forced  to  invent  their  respective  theories  of  Pre- 
established  Harmony  and  Occasional  Causes.  On 
the  case  of  the  Cartesians  he  dwells  particularly — 
according  to  whose  system,  he  says,  "  God  is  the 
only  efficient  cause,  not  qua  mind,  or  qua  endowed 
with  volition,  but  qua  omnipotent."* 

The  best  way  of  approaching  the  strength  of 
our  argument  will  be  through  these  supposed  illus- 
trations of  the  adverse  position.  In  the  two  latter 
instances,  the  real  point  at  issue  is  certainly  to  some 
extent  mistaken.  The  ground  of  discussion  is  at 
least  so  shifted  as  to  draw  off  attention  from  that 
point.  In  speaking,  for  example,  of  the  action  of 
matter  upon  matter,  and  again  of  that  mind  upon 
matter,  the  special  idea  suggested  is  clearly  as  tc 
the  mode  of  action  in  the  one  case  and  the  other,  as 

*  Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  a69. 


DOCTRINE    OF    FIXAL    CAUSES.         53 

if  the  real  point  were  the  conceivable  ness  of  this 
mode  in  the  respective  cases.  But  this  is  not  in 
any  sense  the  true  question.  The  Theist  does  not 
profess  to  comprehend  or  explain  the  difficulty  thus 
suggested.  The  mode  of  action  of  mind  upon 
matter,  or  indeed  the  mode  of  connection  between 
matter  and  matter,  is  acknowledged  to  be  wholly 
inscrutable.  The  point  in  dispute  is  simply  the 
fact  of  action  or  efficiency  at  all.  In  the  one  case 
— that  is  to  say,  when  we  apprehend  Mind  as  the 
cause  of  phenomena — we  are  satisfied  with  this  ap- 
prehension, not  because  we  understand  how  Mind 
is  the  cause — or,  in  other  words,  how  it  acts  upon 
matter — but  simply  because  we  know,  in  our  own 
experience,  that  it  does  so  act.  We  rest  in  Mind  as 
a  source  and  explanation  of  action  generally,  just 
because  it  is  to  us  all  this,  and  we  know  of  nothing 
else  that  is  this. 

It  is  true  that  Leibnitz  and  the  Cartesians  did 
not  regard  the  human  mind  in  this  light.  Denying, 
as  they  did,  finite  efficiency,  they  could  not,  of 
course,  rest  in  it  as  an  explanation  of  action,  any 
more  than  they  could  hold  one  physical  element 
or  event  to  be  an  explanation  of  another.  Within 
the  sphere  of  finite  existence  they  did  not  recog- 
nize any  efficiency ;  and  hence  the  theory  of  Pre- 
established  Harmony  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of 
Occasional  Causes  on  the  other,  to  account  for  the 
connection  between  finite  spirit  and  matter.  But 


54  T  H  E  I  S  M  . 

so  far  was  either  Leibnitz  or  the  Cartesians  from 
denying  the  fact  of  efficiency  as  applied  to  the 
Divine  Being,  that  it  was  just  this  fact  they  called 
in  to  solve  the  absurd  difficulty  in  which  they  had 
involved  themselves.  They  could  not  conceive  the 
action  of  finite  mind  upon  matter.  The  fact  was 
not  enough  for  them;  but  they  must  understand 
it  logically ;  and,  being  unable  so  to  understand  it, 
they  arbitrarily  called  in  the  Divine  efficiency  to 
explain  it.  In  the  case  of  the  Cartesians  this  is 
clearly  admitted  by  Mr.  Mill ;  and  it  is  undeniable 
in  both  cases,  whatever  may  be  said  to  the  con- 
trary.* 

It  does  not  seem,  therefore,  that  the  views  of 
these  philosophers,  in  their  true  and  comprehensive 
sense,  avail  much  for  Mr.  Mill's  position.  It  is,  in- 
deed, admitted  that  they  did  not  recognize  the  fact 
of  limited  efficiency  in  the  human  mind,  from 

*  See  (Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  368)  Mr.  Mill's  strange  attempt  to  prove 
that  Leibnitz  denied  the  ultimate  adequacy  of  the  Divine  effi- 
ciency to  account  for  things  in  general.  Nothing  could  be  fur- 
ther from  the  true  thoughts  of  Leibnitz.  He  merely  says  that 
he  can  not  conceive  this  efficiency  working  save  in  certain  ways. 
The  fact  of  the  Divine  efficiency  is  not  in  question,  but  only  the 
mode  of  its  working.  The  following  are  the  words  of  Leibnitz, 
quoted  and  emphasized  by  Mr.  Mill :  "Si  Dieu  donnait  cette  loi, 
par  exemple,  a  un  corps  libre,  de  tourner  a  1'entour  d'un  cer- 
tain centre,  il  faudrait  ou  qu'il  y  joignit  d'autres  corps  qui  par 
leur  impulsion  1'obligeassent  de  rester  toujours  dans  son  orbite 
circulaire,  ou  qu'il  mit  un  ange  fc  ses  trousses,  ou  enfin  il  fau- 
drait qu'il  y  concourat  extraordinairement ;  car  naturellement 
il  s'ecartera  par  la  tangente." — LEIBNITZ'S  Works,  iii.  446 :  Ed. 
Dutens, 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         55 

which  we  rise  argumentatively  to  the  fact  of  the 
Divine  efficiency,  and  that  in  their  respective  phi- 
losophies, accordingly,  they  did  not  leave  any  ra- 
tional basis  for  Theism.  We  willingly  abandon 
them  as  consistent  theistic  thinkers.  Yet  they 
were  so  far  from  resting  short  of  the  theistic  con- 
clusion— the  conclusion  of  a  Supreme  Mind  effi- 
ciently connected  with  things  in  general — that 
their  respective  theories  rest  expressly  on  the  sup- 
position of  Divine  efficiency.  Mr.  Mill's  refine- 
ment as  to  the  Divine  efficiency  being  apprehended, 
not  qua  mind  or  qua  volition,  but  qua  omnipotence 
— even  if  we  were  disposed  to  grant  it — does  not 
in  the  least  militate  against  our  view,  according  to 
which,  as  will  be  immediately  more  fully  explained, 
it  is  only  as  resting  in  Mind  that  power  has  any 
meaning,  or  can  have  any.  So  far,  therefore,  from 
denying  the  theistic  position — or,  in  other  words, 
the  fact  of  a  Supreme  Kational  Will  as  the  only 
explanation  of  things — it  was  in  truth  the  peculiar 
error  of  Leibnitz  and  the  Cartesians,  that  they 
pushed  this  position  to  such  excess  as  to  overbear 
the  no  less  valid  fact  of  the  finite  rational  will, 
through  which  alone,  according  to  our  whole  ap- 
prehension, the  higher  fact  can  be  consistently 
reached. 

A  little  examination  will  equally  avail  to  obviate 
the  force  of  the  more  pertinent  illustration,  drawn 
from  the  case  of  the  early  Greek  philosophers,  and 


56  THEISM. 

even  to  show  how  its  more  correct  understanding 
may  be  turned  in  favor  of  our  position.  These 
philosophers,  says  Mr.  Mill,  found  in  some  single 
physical  element  a  sufficient  explanation  of  things. 
If  they  could  rest  satisfied  with  such  an  explanation, 
this  is  a  proof  that  there  is  no  inherent  mental  ne- 
cessity which  compels  us  to  place  Mind  at  the  head 
of  things  as  their  ultimate  cause.  But  admitting 
that  Thales*  and  Anaximenes  acknowledged  in  the 
physical  elements — the  one  of  Water,  and  the 
other  of  Air — not  only  a  primordial  principle  or 
prima  ma.teria,  but  an  ultimate  cause  or  final  ex- 
planation of  things,  it  may  be  shown  beyond  dis- 
pute that  they  only  held  such  an  opinion  in  virtue 
of  their  having  recognized  in  Water  or  Air  respect- 
ively a  peculiar  formative  energy.  To  borrow 
Mr.  Mill's  own  mode  of  explanation,  with  a  fairer 
application  than  he  makes  of  it,  it  was  not  qua 
matter  (this  or  that  material  form),  but  qua  the  vital 
Energy  or  Soulf  with  which  they  were  supposed 

*  Tbales — whose  case  is  out  of  all  question  the  most  in  point, 
he  having,  in  virtiie  of  his  supposed  views,  been  accused  of 
Atheism — is  yet  expressly  stated  by  Cicero  to  have  only  held 
that  the  vovr  or  Divine  Intelligence  created  all  things  from 
•water ;  a  statement  which  at  least  ought  to  have  so  much  weight 
as  to  convince  us  how  little  can  be  drawn  from  the  fragmentary 
memorials  of  ancient  Grecian  philosophy  to  determine  authori- 
tatively the  question  before  us. 

•j-  That  this  was  really  the  opinion  of  Anaximenes  in  regard 
to  Air  is  admitted  by  Lewes,  in  his  rapid  and  clever  review  of 
the  Ancient  Philosophers  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Biog.  History 
of  Philosophy,  p.  SI;  and  the  admission  on  his  part,  as  being  so 


DOCTRINE    O'F-S-XJSLAL    CAUSES.         O< 

endowed,  that  these  elements  were  apprehended  to 
be  the  fountain  of  existence.  The  idea  of  Originant 
force  was  what  they  mainly  associated  with  the 
(*OT  which  they  sought,  whatever  may  be  the 
merely  material  character  which  its  name  now 
suggests  to  us. 

Now,  in  this  recognition  of  the  ancient  Grecian 
philosophy,  we  have  really,  it  is  important  to  ob- 
serve, the  essential  germ  of  our  doctrine.  Even 
if  it  be  indisputable  that  the  clear  conception  of 
the  Ultimate  Cause  as  intelligent  were  a  later  pro- 
duct of  the  same  philosophy,  it  can  be  shown  that 
in  the  acknowledgment  (under  whatever  special 
form)  of  Force  as  the  original  spring  of  existence, 
there  is  already  infolded  the  great  truth,  of  Mind 
forming  the  only  final  explanation  of  things.  The 
grounds  on  which  we  rest  this  assertion  will  be  im- 
mediately apparent.  Kightly  regarded,  therefore, 
these  early  Grecian  speculations,  so  far  from  being 

truly  a  thinker  after  Mr.  Mill's  own  heart,  is  significant.  Nay, 
so  truly  did  Anaximenes  recognize  his  original  principle  on  the 
side  of  activity  or  productive  energy,  that  he  made  it  identical 
with  the  soul — the  "something  which  moved  him  he  knew 
not  how."  While  Mr.  Lewes  represents  the  doctrine  of  Thales 
as  being  of  a  lower  character,  he  yet  admits,  in  his  case  as  well, 
the  apprehension  of  a  vital  force,  as  prominent  in  the  supposed 
primordial  element,  as  indeed  it  is  impossible  in  our  view  to 
conceive  otherwise.  He  says  in  a  note,  p.  34 :  "  When  Anaxi- 
menes speaks  of  Air,  as  when  Thales  speaks  of  "Water,  we  must 
not  understand  these  elements  as  they  appear  in  this  or  that 
determinate  form  on  earth,  but  as  "Water  and  Air  pregnant  with 
vital  energy" 

3* 


58  THEISM. 

opposed  to  our  position,  furnish  a  powerful  testi- 
mony to  its  strength.  For  what  were  they,  one  and 
all  of  them,  but  attempts  to  rise  to  the  origin  of 
things,  and  to  apprehend  them  in  the  light  of  some 
single  Living  power  or  principle?  To  endeavor 
to  represent  them  as  evidences  of  the  mind's  capa- 
city  to  rest  short  of  such  a  living  supernatural 
Cause,  is  profoundly  to  mistake,  not  only  them,  but 
the  whole  course  and  meaning  of  human  specula- 
tion.* 

The  position,  indeed,  on  which  we  rest — viz,, 
the  irrepressible  necessity  of  the  human  mind  thus 
to  ascend  to  the  origin  of  things,  and  to  apprehend 
this  origin  as  a  Power  above  nature — is  a  position 
that  so  directly  carries  with  it  its  own  evidence, 
that,  like  all  self-evident  truths,  it  is  difficult  to 
deal  with  it  argumentatively.  All  Religion  and  all 
Philosophy  testify  to  it.  They  express,  the  one 
the  deep  feeling  of  the  common  consciousness,  the 
other  the  modified  but  no  less  genuine  feeling  of 
the  reflective  consciousness,  that  there  is  a  Higher 
Source  from  which  flow  all  the  visible  changes 
that  occur  around  us.  So  far  from  this  being  the 
mere  dictate  of  that  instinctive  philosophy  of  the 
human  mind  which  disappears  with  the  advance 
of  science,  it  is  the  utterance  of  an  ineradicable  ra- 

°  It  is  even  to  mistake  the  fundamental  law  of  human  de- 
velopment expounded  by  Positivism,  according  to  which  man's 
earliest  speculations  are  always  of  a  theological  character. 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         59 

tional  necessity,  which  never  changes,  however  it 
may  change  its  mode  of  expression.  In  one  case 
the  Ultimate  Source  or  Power  may  be  so  rudely 
apprehended,  and  in  another  so  refined  and  unified, 
that  the  two  results  may  seem  not  to  represent  the 
same  conviction ;  but  it  is  the  same  rational  ne- 
cessity that  speaks  in  both.  It  is  the  same  truth, 
however  in  certain  cases  obscured  and  even  dis- 
torted, that  forced  itself  upon  us.  Men  can  not 
rest  in  tmy  lower  truth :  they  are  driven  unceas- 
ingly upward,  till  they  rest  in  some  ultimate  and 
comrpehending  Power.  They  can  not  be  satisfied 
with  any  mere  endless  series  of  changes,  which 
does  not  originate  in  such  a  Power,  however  vari- 
ous may  otherwise  be  their  notions  of  it.  Every 
ascent  along  the  chain  of  mere  natural  facts,  leaves 
the  mind  still  in  search  of  an  Origin  beyond  na- 
ture. Here  alone  it  searches  no  more,  but  rests  in 
peace.  "  We  pass  from  effect  to  cause,  from  se- 
quence to  sequence,  and  from  that  to  a  higher 
cause,  in  search  of  something  on  which  the  mind 
can  rest ;  but  if  we  can  do  nothing  but  repeat  this 
process,  there  is  no  use  in  it.  We  move  our  limbs, 
but  make  no  advance.  Our  question  is  not  an- 
swered, but  evaded.  The  mind  can  not  acquiesce 
in  the  destiny  thus  presented  to  it,  of  being  referred 
from  event  to  event,  from  object  to  object,  along 
an  interminable  vista  of  causation  and  time.  Now 
this  mode  of  stating  the  reply — to  say  that  the 


60  THEISM. 

mind  can  not  thus  be  satisfied — appears  to  be  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  the  mind  is  conscious  of  a  prin- 
ciple in  virtue  of  which  such  a  view  as  this  must 
be  rejected ;  the  mind  takes  refuge  in  the  assump- 
tion of  a  First  Cause  from  an  employment  incon- 
sistent with  its  own  nature.'7* 

But  this  irresistible  tendency  to  believe  in  some 
Power  above  nature  is  not  in  itself,  it  may  be  said, 
commensurate  with  the  position  we  have  laid 
down — viz.,  that  Mind  is  the  only  finally  valid  ex- 
planation of  order.  It  gives  us  merely  the  vague 
idea  of  some  First  Cause.  Now  of  course  we  do 
assert  that  the  conception  of  Intelligence  is  plainly 
present  in  that  most  universal  form  of  the  faith  in 
a  First  Cause  to  which  we  have  appealed,  and  on 
which,  in  the  last  case,  our  position  rests.  We  are 
content  to  accept  this  faith,  in  all  its  variety  of  ex- 
plicit meaning,  for  what  it  is  in  itself  simply  and 
incontrovertibly — viz.,  a  testimony  to  some  Higher 
Power.  But  what  we  do  assert  is,  that  this  faith 
in  the  vaguest  form  'implicitly  contains  the  idea  of 
Mind.  For  the  lower  fact  has  only  existence  in 
and  through  the  higher.  Mind  is  to  us  the  only 
analagon  of  power  or  force.  Our  self-conscious- 
ness— according  to  the  whole  scope  of  our  previous 
argument — supplies  us  with  our  only  type  of  effi- 
ciency. Apart  from,  and  independently  of  Mind, 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  conception  of 

*  Dr.  WHEWELI  <*  Indications  of  the  Creator,  p.  199. 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         61 

force  could  have  ever  arisen  within  us.  However, 
then,  the  generic  element  Intelligence  may,  in  cer- 
tain cases,  be  concealed  behind  mere  Power,  we 
only  require  to  analyze  and  carry  out  the  true 
meaning  of  the  latter  in  order  to  find  the  former. 
Power  may  perhaps  be  held  apart  from  Mind  ;  but 
as  it  only  comes  through  the  latter,  it  certainly,  as 
a  fact,  every  where  involves  it,  and  has  a  constant 
tendency  to  return  into  it.  It  is  true,  there  are 
states  of  society  in  which,  either  from  gross  igno- 
rance or  an  over-driven  speculative  rage — which  is 
no  less,  in  the  irjost  real  sense,  ignorance — the  high- 
er and  more  comprehensive  significance  is  lost  sight 
of,  or  does  not  distinctively  emerge ;  but  it  is 
equally  true  that  such  states  are  abnormal  and  tem- 
porary, and  that  the  narrower  and  more  special 
idea  can  nowhere  be  long  or  consistently  held  with- 
out expanding  into  the  other.  Power  can  only 
permanently  assert  itself  as  the  acknowledged  attri- 
bute of  Mind. 

To  those  who  have  not  thoroughly  reflected  on 
the  subject,  this  may  not  seem  an  obvious  conclu- 
sion ;  but  there  is  nothing  appears  to  us  at  once 
more  true,  and  more  important  to  be  kept  in  view. 
Let  it  but  be  granted  that  we  obtain  the  idea  of 
force  solely  from  the  conscious  operation  of  our 
own  minds — and  it  does  not  seem,  according  to  all 
we  formerly  said,  and  even  according  to  the  express 
basis  of  materialism,  that  this  admits  of  any  dispute 


62  THEISM. 

—and  let  it  further  be  admitted  that  it  is  this  idea 
of  power  or  force  in  which,  alone  we  can  ultimately 
rest  in  our  impelled  ascent  to  the  Source  of  things 
— it  seems  impossible  that  we  can  help  recognizing 
this  Source  as  Intelligent,  when  it  is  only  through  the 
conscious  fact  and  operation  of  our  own  intelligence 
that  we  have  the  idea  with  which  it  is  identical. 
Power  being  only  known  to  us  at  all  as  the  expres- 
sion of  Mind,  the  Ultimate  Power  necessarily  be- 
comes to  us  an  Ultimate  Mind.  Let  it  be,  that  the  dim 
unexamined  promptings  of  consciousness  may  per- 
mit us  to  rest  for  a  little,  and  may  even  permit  races, 
in  whom  intelligence,  save  as  a  blind  force,  is  scarce- 
ly developed,  to  rest  for  ages,  in  the  mere  vague 
conception  of  Power  in  the  external  universe,  this 
conception  can  never  fail,  in  the  clearer  working  of 
consciousness,  to  be  transferred  into  its  full  symbol 
— Mind.*  We  can  no  more,  in  fact,  help  making 

*  "  Let  us  ask  how  the  primordial  force  of  pantheism  is  le- 
gitimately transformed  into  an  attribute  of  an  intelligence  ?  Let 
a  designer  stand  for  an  intelligence  who  is  possessed  of  power, 
and  who  intentionally  adapts  means  to  an  end.  Design,  there- 
fore, will  stand  for  intentional  adaptation  ;  and  from  the  con- 
templation of  man,  we  are  enabled  to  make  the  above  defini- 
tions without  transcending  the  realm  of  experience.  When  we 
have  made  man  objective,  we  can  affirm,  'man  can  design  ;'  and 
when  we  contemplate  the  product  of  man's  design,  we  find  it 
expressed  in  the  terms,  '  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end,'  where 
neither  of  the  terms  are  psychological,  but  such  are  used  legiti- 
mately in  physical  science.  And  when,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  find  in  nature  the  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end,  we  infer 
design  and  a  designer,  because  the  only  circumstances  within 
our  experience  in  which  we  can  trace  the  origination  of  ndapt- 


„ 


DOCTKINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         t)i5 

mind  objective,  and  apprehending  it  as  the  only  ulti- 
mate cause  O;T  explanation  of  tilings,  than  we  can  help 
recognizing  existence  under  the  forms  of  our  men- 
tal constitution  at  all.  The  one  result  is  simply  the 
carrying  out  of  the  other. 

This  is  the  final  view  of  our  position ;  and  so 
clearly  is  it  felt  to  be  so,  that  it  will  be  found  that 
the  opposite  school  of  thinkers  have  retreated 

ation,  are  those  in  which  human  mind  is  implicated.  And  thus 
what  was  at  first  an  omnipresent  and  immortal  substance,  and 
afterward  an  omnipresent  and  immortal  power,  becomes  trans- 
formed into  an  omnipresent  and  immortal  intelligence."  We 
give  this  quotation  from  a  recent  work,  marked  by  eminent 
ability  (The  Theory  of  Human  Progression,  p.  481-2),  not  as  co- 
inciding with  its  representation  of  the  mode  in  which  force  be- 
comes transformed  into  an  attribute  of  Intelligence  (Mind),  in 
so  far  as  that  representation  is  exclusive;  although  we  recog- 
nize the  influence  of  the  process  to  which  the  writer  ascribes 
the  origin  of  the  idea  of  Intelligence,  in  educating  and  clearing 
up  this  phase  of  the  theistic  conception,  as  indeed  our  whole 
illustrative  evidence  is  based  on  such  a  recognition.  In  this, 
however,  we  disagree  with  the  representation  of  the  writer  be- 
fore us — that  we  recognize  Mind  as  already  implicitly  given  in 
Force — the  higher,  as  already  contained  in  the  lower  phase  of 
the  theistic  conception — and  on  the  very  grounds  on  which  he 
finds  design  in  nature — viz.,  that  the  only  circumstances  within 
our  experience,  in  which  we  can  trace  force  or  origination  of 
any  kind,  are  those  in  which  Mind  is  implicated — because  Mind, 
in  short,  is  to  us  the  only  analagon  of  force.  Not  only  does 
adaptation,  as  a  fact,  give  Mind,  but  Force  (Cause),  already  in 
our  view,  however  obscurely,  gives  it.  The  study  of  design  in 
Creation  does  not,  as  we  hold,  add  Intelligence  for  the  first  time 
to  our  original  causal  belief.  For  this  belief  already  in  its 
vaguest  form  only  takes  its  rise  in  the  conscious  operation  of 
Mind.  The  manifestations  of  design  are,  however,  of  the  utmost 
value  in  quickening  and  educating  the  idea  of  Mind  or  Intelli- 
gence. 


64  T  II  E  ISM. 

thither  in  an  attitude  of  denial.  This  is  felt  to  be 
the  last  and  essential  point  on  either  side,  and  ap- 
pears to  us  to  be  clearly  indicated  as  such  in  that 
remarkable  passage  of  Mr.  Mill  which  we  quoted 
in  the  outset.  Let  it  be  admitted  that  Mind  is  tbe 
only  efficient  cause  of  things  with  which  we  are  or 
can  be  acquainted :  does  this  entitle  us  to  place  it 
at  the  head  of  nature  ?  Because  Mind  is  to  us  the 
only  conceivable  origin,  does  this  justify  us  in 
making  it  the  origin  of  things  in  general  ?  Have 
we  any  right,  in  short,  to  apply  the  limited  modes 
of  our  rational  conceptivity  to  the  universe  ?  This 
appears  to  be  a  fair  statement  of  the  ultimate  ques- 
tion. Mr.  Mill,  indeed,  might  repudiate  this  state- 
ment. His  eagerness  to  argue  the  question  of 
efficient  causes  on  the  lower  ground  of  their  rejec- 
tion not  being  incompatible  with  the  "  laws  of  our 
mental  conceptivity,"  would  seem  to  imply  his 
willingness  to  abide  by  what  might  be  proved  to 
be  the  true  character  of  these  laws.  But  we  think 
it  plain  beyond  dispute,  that  the  true  source  of  his 
views  lies  in  that  deeper  skepticism  which  treats 
the  human  soul  as  a  mere  product  of  nature,  whose 
essential  modes  of  conception  do  not  necessarily 
mirror,  in  any  true  sense,  the  universe.  And  this 
position,  which  is  more  implied  than  asserted  in 
his  work,  is  openly  and  explicitly  assumed  by 
other  writers  of  the  same  school.  Human  ideas 
are  denied  any  correspondent  relation  to  the  Di- 


DOCTRINE    OF    FIN  ALGA  USES.         65 

vine  Existence.  The  attempt  to  bring  the  universe 
within  the  forms  of  man's  reason,  is  represented  as 
being  equivalent  to  the  old  sophistic  canon  of 
"man  the  measure  of  things."  "At  all  times," 
writes  Mr.  Lewes,  "man  has  made  God  in  his  own 
image ;  he  has  idealized  and  intensified  his  own 
nature,  and  worshiped  that.  This  he  has  ever 
done ;  this,  perhaps,  he  ever  will  do.  But  we 
who,  in  serene  philosophy,  smile  condescendingly 
on  the  ill-taught  barbarian,  whom  we  find  attribut- 
ing his  motives,  his  passions,  his  infirmities,  to  the 
Creator  of  all — we  who  shudder  at  the  idea  of  such 
anthropomorphism,  how  comes  it  that  we  also  have 
fallen  into  the  trap,  and,  having  withdrawn  from 
God  the  investiture  of  Passion,  persist  in  substitut- 
ing for  it  an  abstraction  named  Eeason  ?  Is  not 
God  conceived  to  be  pure  Reason- — omnipotent 
Intelligence?  and  as  Intelligence  is  Lord  and 
Master  of  this  Universe,  so  what  Intelligence  rec- 
ognizes as  perfect  or  imperfect,  must  be  perfect  or 
imperfect."* 

This  last  assertion  of  materialistic  infidelity  de- 
serves particular  attention,  for  it  embraces  the 
whole  sum  of  the  question  between  it  and  a  the- 
istic  Philosophy.  It  presents,  we  feel  assured,  the 
only  consistent  argument  by  which  this  Philosophy 
can  be  assailed.  And  it  is  full  of  pregnant  meaning 

*  COMTE'B  Philosophy  of  the  Sciences.    By  G.  H.  LEWES,  pp.  89,  90. 


66  THEISM. 

for  the  great  issue  at  stake  in  Natural  Theology, 
that  it  should  become  manifest  that  the  validity  of 
its  conclusions  can  only  be  consistently  disputed 
on  grounds  which  can  be  shown  to  involve  the 
negation  of  all  Philosophy  and  all  Theology,  and 
which  spring  from  a  mode  of  thought  essentially 
hostile  to  those  highest  expressions  of  truth  which 
we  so  deeply  venerate  in  Christianity. 

Let  us  see  more  particularly  what  this  assertion 
involves.  When  it  is  alleged  that  the  facts  of  the 
universe  are  not  necessarily  correspondent  to  the 
modes  of  human  reason,  what  is  implied  ?  Un- 
doubtedly this,  that  however  man  may  observe 
and  classify  the  facts  of  nature,  these  facts  can 
never  become  to  him  truth,  for  it  is  only  the  light 
of  interpretation  with  which  his  reason  invests 
them,  that  makes  them  to  him  TRUTH.  This, 
however,  is  called  by  our  Positive  Philosophers 
"  anthropomorphism,"  and  the  boundless  Life  of 
the  universe  is  represented  as  unwarrantably  con- 
fined within  the  forms  of  man's  interpretation.  It 
is  surely  enough  to  say,  in  answer  to  such  a  view, 
that  it  is  not  possible  to  conceive  how  man  could 
have  ever  known  truth  save  under  the  conditions 
of  his  reason  ;  and  to  allege,  therefore,  this  neces- 
sary condition  of  his  having  any  knowledge  in 
proof  of  the  weakness  and  incompetency  of  that 
knowledge,  is  simply  a  desperation  of  skepticism 
so  ridiculous  that  we  might  well  be  pardoned  for 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.         67 


not  attempting  any  reply  to  it.  Whether  or  not 
there  be  any  other  truth  in  regard  to  the  universe 
than  that  which  the  forms  of  his  reason  compel 
him  to  accept  as  such,  must  be  to  man  an  utterly 
idle  question.  There  can  be  no  other  truth  to  him 
than  that  which  he  is  thus  compelled  to  accept. 
To  state  the  matter  still  more  pertinently,  let  it  be 
admitted  to  be  a  fair  hypothesis  that  there  may  be 
efficient  causes  in  the  universe  entirely  different 
from  that  of  which  alone  he  has,  or  can  have,  any 
idea,  it  yet  remains  a  fact,  that  the  universe  is  to 
him  only  conceivable  as  the  production  of  Mind — 
Intelligent  Power.  It  is  a  fact,  according  to  our 
whole  theory,  that  this  conception  is  one  inextin- 
guishable in  human  nature.  And  the  refusal  of 
the  Positivist,  therefore,  to  accept  the  verdict  of 
human  nature  on  the  subject,  simply  amounts  to 
an  assertion  of  utter  skepticism — a  denial  of  any 
truth  being  possible  to  man. 

Indeed,  if  the  demands  of  our  rational  conscious- 
ness be  repelled  in  this,  one  of  its  deepest  expres- 
sions, it  seems  a  clear  inference,  that  not  only  truth 
in  the  highest  sense  is  rendered  impossible,  but 
that  even  the  foundations  of  Science  are  assailed. 
For  if  we  refuse  to  accept  the  rational  interpreta- 
tion of  nature  in  its  full  extent,  we  can  have  no 
right  to  accept  it  to  any  extent.  If  it  be  an  in- 
herent necessity  of  our  mental  constitution — which 
we  have  so  fullv  shown  it  to  be — that  we  recognize 


68  THEISM. 

Mind  in  nature  as  its  source,  and  we  refuse  that  re- 
cognition, we  thereby  impugn  the  veracity  of  the 
human  consciousness  altogether,  and  leave  no  foot- 
hold for  truth  of  any  kind,  according  to  the  well- 
known  maxim,  which  in  such  an  application  can 
admit  of  no  dispute,  "falsus  in  uno,  falsus  in  omni- 
bus." The  final  position  assumed  by  Positivism 
might  well,  therefore,  be  left  to  its  own  refutation  ; 
for  a  position  of  such  a  character  is  self- destructive. 
Positivism  is,  in  fact,  essentially,  whatever  philo- 
sophical pretensions  it  may  arrogate  to  itself, 
nothing  else  than  a  species  of  philosophical 
suicide. 

The  condition  of  all  true  science,  as  of  all  phi- 
losophy, lies  in  a  totally  different  view  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  human  mind  to  the  universe.  They 
essentially  presuppose,  as  the  ground  of  their  vera- 
city, an  original  harmony  between  Mind  and  nature, 
so  that  the  former  finds  it  own  laws  in  the  latter, 
and  rightly  relies  on  the  reality  of  what  it  there 
finds.  Man  is  thus  conceived  to  stand  to  the  whole 
world  of  material  existence  in  the  light  of  Inter- 
preter. He  is  the  prophet  of  the  otherwise  dumb 
oracle — the  voice  of  the  otherwise  silent  symbol. 
He  looks  abroad  with  a  clear  confidence  that  what 
he  every  where  reads  in  the  light  of  his  own  con- 
sciousness is  the  very  truth  and  meaning  which  is 
there,  and  which  he  therefore  ought  to  receive. 
Let  this  confidence  be  destroyed,  and  there  remains 


DOCTRINE    OF    FINAL    CAUSES.  ^ 

for  him  no  truth  or  genuine  science  that  we  can 
imagine. 

It  is  important  to  observe  the  exact  character  of 
the  relation  thus  maintained  to  exist  between  Mind 
and  nature.  The  correct  perception  of  it  dissipates 
at  once  all  ingenious  and  plausible  misrepresenta- 
tions with  which  it  may  be  attacked.  It  is  a  rela- 
tion of  correspondence  or  harmony  'as  already 
stated,  so  that  Mind  apprehends  nature  in  a  faith- 
ful mirror,  and  finds  a  reality  answering  to  its  in- 
tuitions ;  but  it  is  not  asserted  to  be  a  commensu- 
rate relation  in  the  sense  of  the  old  dictum,  "  Man 
the  measure  of  things."  There  is  a  most  important 
distinction  between  the  two  views,  amounting  to 
all  the  difference  between  a  sound  and  reverent 
philosophy  and  that  higher  and  more  vaulting 
speculation  which  overleaps  itself  in  the  attempt  to 
construct  the  universe  from  the  mere  abstract  forms 
of  human  thought.  In  the  latter  case,  alone,  is 
man  made  the  "measure  of  things,"  when  he 
aspires  not  merely  to  apprehend  truth,  and  to  stand 
face  to  face  with  it,  but  to  comprehend  and  contain 
all  truth  within  the  limits  of  his  mental  concep- 
tivity.  In  the  one  case  man  only  aspires  to  the 
knowledge  of  God,  without  which  he  were  the 
most  miserable  of  all  beings — that  inexplicable  con- 
tradiction which  he  has  been  sometimes  painted ;  in 
the  other  he  aspires  to  be  as  God — an  attitude  in 
which  he  appears  just  as  ridiculously  and  falsely 


70  T  H  E  I  S  M  . 

exalted,  as,  in  the  other,  he  is  wretchedly  And 
falsely  degraded. 

We  approach  here  that  significant  opposition  in 
the  modes  of  thought  we  are  considering,  at  which 
we  have  already  hinted,  and  which  is  highly  worthy 
of  our  notice  in  conclusion.  The  question  before  us, 
resolved  into  this  its  most  general  shape,  comes  un- 
doubtedly to  be  one  regarding  the  whole  position 
and  dignity  of  man  in  the  universe.  According  to 
the  old*  religious  view,  on  which  Christianity,  as 
well  indeed  as  all  Eeligioii  and  all  Philosophy, 
rests,  man  is  considered  to  be  not  merely  a  creature, 
making  his  appearance  in  the  course  of  nature,  but 
a  creature,  while  in  nature,  at  the  same  time  in  a 
true  sense  above  it — specially  allied  to  its  Divine 
Source.  The  perfect  expression  of  this  only  truly 
religious  and  philosophic  view  is  given  in  the  im- 
perishable language  of  Scripture — "  God  made  man 
in  his  own  image."  The  same  truth  is  classically 
expressed  in  the  memorial  words — "In  nature 
there  is  nothing  great  but  man ;  in  man  there  is 
nothing  great  but  mind." 

According  to  this  view,  man,  while  in  the  very 
fact  of  his  present  existence  a  product  of  nature,  is 
yet  endowed  with  capacities  which  exalt  him  far 
above  it,  and  place  him  in  a  perfectly  peculiar  re- 
lation to  the  universe.  He  is  indeed  Matter,  but 
yet  Spirit.  There  is  a  Divine  element  of  conscious 
reason  in  him,  which  asserts  its  superiority  over  the 


DOCTKIXE    OF    F  T  X  A  L    CAUSES.         71 

whole  sphere  of  nature,  and  validly  finds  its  own 
laws  in  all.  In  one  aspect  of  his  being,  indeed,  he 
is  purely  natural — a  mere  element,  and  a  very  frail 
one,  in  the  world-progress ;  but,  in  another  aspect, 
he  is  truly  supernatural,  and  even  the  whole  uni- 
verse is  his"  inferior  and  subject.  According  to  the 
fine  thought  of  Pascal,  "Man  is  but  a  reed,  the 
feeblest  thing  in  nature ;  but  he  is  a  reed  that 
thinks  (un  roseau  pensanf).  It  needs  not  that  the 
universe  arm  itself  to  crush  him.  An  exhalation, 
a  drop  of  water,  suffices  to  destroy  him.  But  were 
the  universe  to  crush  him,  man  is  yet  nobler  than 
the  universe,  for  he  knows  that  he  dies;  and  the 
universe,  even  in  prevailing  against  him,  knows 
not  its  power."* 

"Man  is  yet  nobler  than  the  universe"  Here, 
where  clearly  center  the  most  significant  depths  of 
Christian  doctrine,  lies  also  the  essential  doctrine 
of  Theism.  The  Infidelity  which  rejects  it,  there- 
fore, is  really,  probed  to  its  bottom,  an  infidelity 
not  only  in  Grod,  but  in  man.  Eeason  is  with  it 
only  the  plaything  of  time — the  growth  of  nature. 
With  the  Theist  it  is  the  first-born  of  Eternity — 
the  very  "  image  of  God."  The  soul  is  infinitely 
higher  than  all  nature,  and  validly,  therefore,  brings 
all  nature  within  its  sphere,  and  finds  its  own  re- 
flection every  where  in  it.  Matter  is  only  glorified 
in  the  light  of  Spirit.  Nature  is  only  beautiful — 

*  Pensees.     Faugcre's  edit.     Tome  ii.  p.  84. 


72  THEISM. 

only,  in  fact,  intelligible — in  the  mirror  of  EVER- 
LIVING  MIND. 

We  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  does  Nature  live. 


§  I.— CHAPTER  IY. 

THEISTIC   CONCLUSIONS. — (GENERAL  LAWS.) 

THE  major  premiss  of  our  theistic  syllogism  has 
been  made  good,  according  to  the  validity  of  our 
previous  reasoning.  More  than  this,  the  theistic 
conclusion  itself,  in  its  primary  and  most  naked 
form,  has  been  made  good  along  with  it.  In  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  the  question  passed  over 
from  its  initiative  and  abstract,  to  its  direct  and 
conclusive  statement.  The  minor  premiss  was  held 
as  implied ;  and  the  essential  question  came  to  be 
whether  a  mode  of  conception,  valid  in  certain 
human  applications,  was  valid  in  reference  to  nature 
at  large — whether,  in  short,  Mind,  admitted  to  be 
to  man  the  only  efficient  cause,  was  yet  entitled  to 
be  considered  the  only  efficient  cause  and  final  ex- 
planation of  the  universe. 

We  have  claimed  this  position  for  Mind  in  virtue 
of  a  rational  necessity,  which  will  not  allow  us  to 
rest  short  of  such  a  conclusion.  More  particularly, 
have  endeavored  to  vindicate  it  by  determining 
4 


74  THEISM. 

the  true  nature  of  causation,  which  we  find  to 
be  always  a  relation  of  efficiency,  and  which,  there- 
fore, at  the  very  first,  carried  us  beyond  the  mere 
range  of  physical  sequences  to  some  Power  in 
which  they  originate.  This  Power  can  be  nothing 
else  than  a  Mind,  as  it  is  only  in  the  fact  and  con- 
scious operation  of  our  own  minds  that  we  have 
the  conception  of  power  at  all.  The  rational 
necessity  on  which  the  argument  rests  can  only  be 
consistently  set  aside  by  denying  the  veracity  of 
our  rational  being  altogether,  and  so  destroying  the 
foundations  of  all  science  and  philosophy  whatever. 
Mind  is  found  in  nature  as  a  whole,  and  held  to  be 
its  only  ultimate  explanation  on  the  very  same 
grounds  on  which  we  apply  to  nature  the  forms  of 
our  mental  life  at  all.  The  theistic  conclusion  is 
only  the  fair  result  of  the  rational  interpretation  of 
nature  carried  out. 

The  conclusive  sum  of  our  previous  argument 
gives  us,  then,  when  fully  expressed,  an  Intelligent 
First  Cause  of  nature.  The  root  of  this  conclusion, 
however,  is  not  in  external  nature,  but  in  our 
rational  consciousness.  Nay,  it  emerges  in  what 
is  distinctively  called  our  moral  consciousness.  It 
starts  from  this  as  its  special  source.  But,  inas- 
much as  our  spiritual  life  is  a  unity,  this  distinctive 
origin  of  the  theistic  conception  does  not  affect,  as 
some  would  seem  to  think,  the  appropriate  signifi- 
cance and  validity  of  the  general  argument  from 


GENE  HAL    LAWS.  75 


design.  It  only  points  to  the  deep  harmony  which, 
underlies  the  whole  of  the  theistic  evidence.  It 
only  indicates  where  the  links  of  that  evidence 
gather  up  into  a  final  and  irrefragable  postulate  of 
our  spiritual  being. 

Before  passing  from  this  branch  of  our  subject, 
there  is  a  relation  of  it  which  it  may  be  well  to 
consider — with  such  perverseness  has  it  been  mis- 
interpreted and  misapplied.  It  has  been  held  that 
our  conclusion  is  at  variance  with  the  results  of 
Science.  Science  gives  us,  as  the  final  expression 
of  phenomena  every  where,  general  laws,  to  which 
the  phenomena  may  all  be  traced  back,  and  upon 
which  they  seem  to  depend.  It  is  simply  the  aim 
of  Science  to  discover  these  laws  in  every  depart- 
ment of  nature,  and  so  to  give  to  man  a  greater 
mastery  over  its  multiplied  resources.  It  is  not, 
perhaps,  much  to  be  wondered  at  that,  in  the  proud 
and  continued  triumph  with  which  Science  has 
pursued  her  course,  there  should  have  been  some 
of  her  votaries  who  believed  themselves  not  only 
exposing  the  domain  of  nature,  but  revealing  the 
last  truths  which  concerns  man  to  learn.  And 
while  the  great  conclusion  of  Theism  has  been 
thus  deliberately  discarded  by  certain  minds,  it  has 
been  felt  by  many  more  as  if  that  conclusion  were 
somehow  dangerously  affected  by  the  discoveries 
of  Science. 

It  will  afterward  be  our  aim,  in  a  more  special 


76  T  H  £  1  3  3f  . 

way,  to  show  how  little  the  theistic  position  is 
affected  by  the  most  notable  of  these  discoveries ; 
how  little,  in  truth,  we  can  rest  in  even  the  most 
signal  of  general  laws  as  self-explanatory — as  fur- 
nishing the  last  expression  of  truth  for  the  human 
mind.  The  fact  is,  that  any  such  law,  instead  of 
explaining  the  phenomena  which  seem  to  issue  from 
it,  is  merely  the  general  condition  in  which  these 
phenomena  express  themselves,  and  apart  ffom 
which  it  has  no  existence.  Instead  of  the  law  ex- 
plaining the  phenomena,  therefore,  it  might  be  more 
truly  said  that  the  phenomena  explain  the  law,  just 
as  a  sum  in  arithmetic  gives  the  answer  rather  than 
the  answer  the  sum.  The  true  realities  are  the 
separate  facts.  The  law  is  only  the  summary 
expression  by  which  we  hold  these  facts  before  our 
mind. 

In  the  mean  time  it  concerns  us  to  show  how 
finely  and  truly,  in  a  right  point  of  view,  the 
highest  conceptions  of  Science  harmonize  with  the 
theistic  conclusion.  It  is  only  an  unworthy  and 
absurd  representation  of  either  that  leaves  any 
ground  for  hostility  between  them. 

It  has  been  presumed,  for  example,  that  there  is 
an  inconsistency  between  a  self-acting  power  and 
that  invariable  uniformity  which  is  seen  to  charac- 
terize the  operations  of  nature.  The  order  which 
Science  discovers  every  where  is  supposed,  in  its 
silent  and  undeviating  march,  to  exclude  any  per- 


G-  E  N  E  R  A  L    L  A  W  S  .  77 


sonal  agency.  This  agency  is  apprehended  as 
something  necessarily  arbitrary,  and  hence  as  con- 
flicting with  general  laws.  Volition,  in  short,  and 
law  or  order,  are  conceived  of  as  incompatible 
realities  ;  and  the  idea  of  any  directing  Volition  is 
held  as  dispelled  by  the  knowledge  which  Science 
enables  us  to  acquire  of  natural  phenomena,  so 
that  we  can  foretell  and  even  control  them.*  Now, 
nothing  can  well  be  imagined  more  absurd  and 
unphilosophical  than  such  a  notion  of  volition 
applied  to  the  Supreme  Being.  The  only  valid 
presumption  in  the  case  would  be  of  a  totally 
different  character.  Instead  of  regularity  being 
supposed  inconsistent  with  the  agency  of  such  a 
Being,  it  would  be  held  as  only  its  appropriate  ex- 
pression. It  is  only  the  most  vicious  idea  of  will, 
as  divorced  from  reason,  that  could  for  a  moment 
give  rise  to  a  different  apprehension:  A  Supreme 


*  The  following  quotation  will  show  that  we  do  not  mis- 
represent the  doctrine  of  Positivism:  "  The  fundamental  char- 
acter of  all  Theological  Philosophy  is  the  conceiving  of  phenom- 
ena as  subjected  to  Supernatural  Volition,  and  consequently  (!  1) 
as  eminently  and  irregularly  variable.  Now,  these  Theological 
conceptions  can  only  be  subverted  finally  by  means  of  these 
two  general  processes,  whose  popular  success  is  infallible  in  the 
long  run — (1)  the  exact  and  rational  prevision  of  phenomena,  and 
(2)  the  possibility  of  modifying  them,  so  as  to  promote  our  own 
ends  and  advantages.  The  former  immediately  dispels  the  idea 
of  any  'Directing  Volition;'  and  the  latter  tends  to  the  same 
result,  under  another  point  of  view,  by  making  us  regard  this 
power  as  subordinate  to  our  own." — COMTE'S  Philosophy  of  the 
Sciences,  by  LEWES,  pp.  102,  103, 


78  THEISM. 

Will,  which,  is  at  the  same  time  Supreme  Wisdom, 
we  can  only  think  of  as  manifesting  itself  in  order. 
The  actual  order  of  nature,  therefore,  so  far  from 
affording  a  ground  of  objection  to  the  fact  of 
superintending  Volition,  is  just  the  very  form  in 
which  we  should  rationally  conceive  that  Volition 
to  express  itself.  And  the  mastery  which,  by  the  help 
of  Science,  we  acquire  over  the  resources  of  nature 
instead  of  destroying  the  notion  of  such  Yolition, 
only  serves  to  bring  into  clearer  view  the  wonderful 
means  by  which  it  works,  and  through  which  it 
provides  for  human  happiness.  The  scientific  pre- 
vision of  phenomena  is  simply  the  interpretation  of 
the  plans  of  the  Divine  Eeason  by  that  human 
reason  which  is  allied  to  it,  and  which  only  finds 
in  the  Divine  plans  the  realization  of  its  own 
highest  conceptions  of  order. 

The  same  fundamental  prejudice,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  is  found  even  to  pervade  the  language 
of  Theology.  Looking  upon  general  laws  more  as 
vast  mechanisms  than  living  forces,  the  theologian 
too  has  been  apt  to  consider  them  as  inconsistent 
with  the  idea  of  directing  Yolition  or  special  Prov- 
idence. They  have  seemed  to  him  to  destroy  that 
living  guardian  presence  of  God  in  nature  which 
the  heart  instinctively  cherishes :  and  he  has,  ac- 
cordingly, sometimes  spoken  of  them  with  a  sort 
of  jealousy.  But,  according  to  their  right  concep- 
tion, they  are  very  far  from  thus  displacing  and 


GENERAL    LAWS.  79 


putting  out  of  view  the  Divine  Agency.  So  very 
far  from  doing  this,  they  are  truly  nothing  else 
than  the  expression  of  that  Agency — the  continual 
going  forth  of  the  Divine  Efficiency.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  postponing  or  removing  to  a  distance 
the  Divine  Presence,  they  are  every  where  simply 
the  manifestations  of  that  Presence.  To  suppose 
that,  because  the  order  of  nature  is  fixed  to  us,  the 
Divine  Father  can  not  exercise  through  that  order 
a  special  providence  toward  His  children,  is  simply 
a  presumptuous  imagination  of  the  most  unworthy 
kind.  For  to  the  great  Source  of  Being,  who 
"  seeth  in  all  His  works  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning," these  only  are  at  any  moment,  in  all  their 
endless  intricacy  of  action  and  reaction,  even  as 
He  appoints.  The  truer  view,  therefore,  would  be 
to  regard  the  whole  course  of  Providence,  the 
whole  order  of  nature,  as  special,  in  the  sense  of 
proceeding  directly  every  moment  from  the  awful 
abysses  of  Creative  Power. 

Certainly,  if  there  is  any  correction  needed  in 
our  theological  conceptions  and  nomenclature  on 
this  subject,  it  is  in  reference  to  the  supposition  of 
a  general  rather  than  of  a  special  Providence — of 
the  former  as  in  any  true  or  intelligible  sense  dis- 
tinguished from  the  latter.  For  surely,  to  conceive 
of  any  order  of  events,  or  any  facts  of  nature,  as 
less  directly  connected  than  others  with  their  Di- 
vine Author,  is  an  absurdity.  And  what,  save 


80  THEISM. 

this,  can  be  distinctively  meant  by  a  general  Prov- 
idence, we  are  at  a  loss  to  imagine.  Only  suppose 
the  Deity  equally  present  in  all  His  works,  equally 
active  in  all,  and  Providence  no  longer  admits  of 
a  twofold  apprehension.  It  is  simply,  in  every 
possible  mode  of  its  conception,  the  Agency  of 
God;  equally  mediate  in  all  cases  as  expressing 
itself  by  some  means,  but  also  in  all  cases  equally 
immediate  as  no  less  truly  expressed  in  one  species 
of  means  as  in  another.  According  to  this  higher 
and  comprehensive  view,  the  Divine  Presence  lives 
alike  in  all  the  Divine  works.  God  is  every  where 
in  nature  speaking  to  us  the  same  language.  He 
is  equally  near  to  us  in  all  its  more  ordinary  and 
more  striking  aspects  ;  in  the  glad  sunshine  or  the 
gentle  shower,  as  in  the  boding  darkness  and  the 
dreadful  storm  ;  in  the  fall  of  a  leaf  amid  the  fields 
of  autumn,  as  in  the  waste  of  the  whirlwind  on  the 
desolated  plains  of  winter. 


SUPPLEMENTARY   CHAPTER.* 

SPECIAL  (GEOLOGICAL)  EVIDENCE  OF  A  CREATOR. 

THE  doctrine  of  an  Intelligent  First  Cause, 
which  it  has  been  the  aim  of  the  foregoing  chap- 
ter to  establish,  has  been  supposed  to  derive  a 
special  testimony  and  confirmation  from  the  facts 
of  Geological  science.  It  has  been  maintained 
that  these  facts  not  only  enable  the  Natural  The- 
ologian— as  in  the  case  of  existing  organic  pro- 
ducts— to  infer  a  supreme  Creative  Mind,  although, 
this,  too,  they  eminently  do ;  but  moreover  conduct 
us  directly  backward  to  the  presence  and  agency 
of  such  a  Mind.  In  a  word,  they  are  said  to  take 
us  out  of  the  region  of  natural  cause  and  effect, 
and  to  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  great  Creative 
Cause.  Lord  Brougham,  in  his  review  of  the 
memorable  labors  of  Cuvier  in  the  department  of 
Fossil  Osteology,  was  among  the  first  to  draw  at- 

*  The  character  of  the  evidence  treated  of  in  this  chapter 
sufficiently  separates  it  from  the  general  range  of  merely  illus- 
trative evidence.  This,  upon  the  whole,  seemed  to  be  the 
proper  position  for  it. 

4* 


82  THEISM. 

tention  to  the  distinctive  character  and  cogency  of 
this  branch  of  the  theistic  evidence.  Dr.  Chalmers 
was  disposed  to  place  great  stress  upon  it,  especially 
as  serving  in  a  direct  and  tangible  way  to  extricate 
the  Natural  Theologian  from  the  meshes  of  Hume's 
sophistry.  The  question  it  involves,  the  reader 
will  at  once  recognize  as  one  which  has  recently 
assumed  a  peculiar  and  prominent  importance  in 
scientific  discussions. 

Interesting,  however,  as  this  question  is  to  the 
Natural  Theologian,  it  is  right  to  observe  that  we 
do  not  hold  it  to  involve  the  essential  interests  of 
Theism.  The  theistic  argument  no  doubt  receives 
a  striking  illumination  from  the  idea  of  successive 
creative  interpositions,  manifest  in  the  very  struc- 
ture of  the  earth  and  its  organic  remains.  It  is  in 
the  highest  degree  significant,  that,  as  we  turn  over 
the  stony  tablets  of  the  Geological  volume,  we 
should  not  merely  be  arrested  at  every  page  with 
impressive  manifestations  of  that  pervading  design 
which  we  perceive  every  where,  but  at  definite  in- 
tervals should  gaze  with  awe  upon  the  very  record 
of  Creation,  and  behold,  as  it  were,  the  finger  of 
Omnipotence  in  mysterious  operation.  Yet  it  is 
clearly  evident  to  us,  and  deserves  to  be  carefully 
considered,  that  even  should  advancing  science  tend 
to  throw  obscurity  upon  the  supposed  traces  of 
direct  Creative  Energy,  the  great  doctrine  of  The- 
ism would  remain  altogether  untouched.  Even  if 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CREATOR.       83 

those  finger-prints  of  the  Creator,  upon  which  the 
Christian  Geologist  has  delighted  to  expatiate, 
should  become  dim  and  obliterated,  as  the  eye  of 
Science  grows  more  familiar  with  them,  and  pierces 
them  with  a  keener  scrutiny,  the  fact  of  a  Creative 
Presence  would  not  thereby  be  really  affected. 
God  would  equally,  if  not  so  strikingly,  live  and 
work  in  the  supposed  extended  development  of 
creation,  as  in  the  supposed  instances  of  direct 
Creative  Power. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  how  completely  this  is  ad- 
mitted by  the  chief  expounder  of  the  development 
hypothesis  in  our  own  country.*  However  his 


*  This  admission  is,  upon  the  whole,  so  clearly  and  happily 
expressed,  that  we  are  prompted  to  submit  it  to  the  reader. 
"  What,  in  the  Science  of  Nature,"  asks  the  author  of  the  Ves- 
tiges, "is  a  law ?  It  is  merely  the  term  applicable  where  any 
series  of  phenomena  is  seen  invariably  to  occur  in  certain  given 
circumstances,  or  in  certain  given  conditions.  Such  phenomena 
are  said  to  obey  a  law,  because  they  appear  to  be  under  a  rule 
or  ordinance  of  constant  operation.  In  the  case  of  these  physi- 
cal laws,  we  can  bring  the  idea  to  mathematical  elements,  and 
see  that  numbers,  in  the  expression  of  space  or  of  time,  form,  as 
it  were,  its  basis.  We  thus  trace  in  law,  Intelligence.  Often 
we  can  see  that  it  has  a  beneficial  object,  still  more  strongly 
speaking  of  Mind  as  concerned  in  it.  There  can  not,  however, 
be  an  inherent  intelligence  in  these  laws.  The  intelligence  ap- 
pears external  to  the  laws :  something  of  which  the  laws  are  but 
as  the  expressions  of  the  Will  and  Power.  If  this  be  admitted, 
the  laws  can  not  be  regarded  as  primary  or  independent  causes 
of  the  phenomena  of  the  physical  world.  We  come,  in  short,  to 
a  Being  beyond  nature — its  Author,  its  God ;  infinite,  incon- 
ceivable, it  may  be,  and  yet  one  whom  these  very  laws  present 
to  us  witb  attributes  showing  that  our  r.ature  is  in  some  way  a 


84  THEISM. 

conclusions  may  seem,  as  they  certainly  seem  to 
us,  to  obscure  and  pervert,  in  its  highest  meaning, 
the  doctrine  of  Theism,  they  are  yet  by  no  means 
essentially,  still  less  expressly,  atheistic.  On  the 
contrary,  the  author  strongly  recognizes  a  Supreme 
Mind,  as  necessarily  implied  in  all  the  order  of  the 
universe ;  and,  in  the  most  recent  edition  of  his 
work,  he  has  added  the  special  confession,  that  he 
"believes"  in  a  personal  and  intelligent  Gfod,  and 
can  not  conceive  of  dead  matter  receiving  life  otherwise 
than  through  Him* 

The  peculiar  question  involved  is  not  one  which 
properly  affects  the  existence  of  God,  however  deep- 
ly it  may  affect  all  for  which  that  truth  is  important 
and  dear  to  us.  It  is  truly  a  question  as  to  the 
mode  of  the  Divine  Agency.  In  the  one  case  as 
in  the  other,  a  Creator  is  admitted  ;  only  in  the  one 
case  it  is  maintained  that  we  have  (in  the  fact  of 
the  origin  of  life,  for  example — and  again,  of  the 
successive  animal  species  that  have  peopled  the 
earth)  the  manifestations  of  a  special  Creative  En- 
ergy ;  in  the  other,  that  we  have  merely  the  mani- 

faint  and  far-cast  shadow  of  His,  while  all  the  gentlest  and  beait- 
tifullest  of  our  emotions  lead  us  to  believe  that  we  are  as  chil- 
dren in  His  care,  and  as  vessels  in  His  hand.  Let  it  then  be  un- 
derstood— and  this  is  for  the  reader's  special  attention — that 
when  rational  law  is  spoken  of  here,  reference  is  only  made  to 
the  mode  in  which  the  Divine  Power  is  exercised.  It  is  but  an- 
other phrase  for  the  action  of  the  ever-present  and  sustaining 
God."— P.  10. 

*  Appendix  to  Vestiges,  p.  65  ;  tenth  edition. 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CREATOR.       85 

festations  of  an  advance  in  the  course  of  natural 
law — an  advance  not  alleged  to  exclude  the  Crea- 
tor, yet  the  immediate  result  of  an  inherent  impulse 
originally  imparted  to  matter,  and  not  of  a  special 
creative  fiat. 

In  the  question  thus  at  issue,  the  burden  of  proof 
lies  plainly  upon  the  advocate  of  the  development 
hypothesis.  He  proposes  a  special  theory  to  ac- 
count for  the  ascending  phenomena  of  creation,  and 
the  successive  changes  of  organic  being  to  which 
Geology  testifies.  This  theory  is  one  which  is  un- 
deniably at  variance  with  the  law  which  now  most 
obviously  regulates  the  production  of  life.  The 
very  words  in  which  the  author  of  the  Vestiges  has 
expressed  his  theory  imply  this.  The  hypothetical 
development  which  he  defends  is  one  whereby,  he 
says,  "  the  simplest  and  most  primitive  type,  under 
a  law  to  which  that  of  like  production  is  subordinate, 
gave  birth,  to  the  type  next  above  it — this  again 
produced  the  next  type,  and  so  on  to  the  highest."* 
But  the  law  of  like  production,  which  he  here  sub- 
ordinates to  a  higher  and  more  comprehensive  law, 
is  the  only  one  with,  which,  in  the  historical  period 
of  creation,  we  are  familiar.  As  yet  we  certainly 
possess  no  valid  evidence  of  a  different  law — or,  in 
other  words,  of  the  transmutation,  of  species — and 
still  less  of  the  origin  of  life  under  any  material  in- 
fluences, electrical  or  otherwise. 

*  Vestiges  ;  Appendix,  p.  60. 


86  THEISM. 

True,  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  both  veg- 
etable and  animal  organisms  are  capable  of  certain 
degrees  of  variation  and  modification  under  exter- 
nal circumstances.  There  are  even,  it  must  be 
granted,  certain  indications  among  the  lower  forms 
of  life  of  this  modifiable  capacity  extending  further 
than  was  at  first  supposed.  The  alleged  case  of 
the  jEgilops  ovata*  is  an  illustration.  But,  admit- 
ting all"  this,  it  will  not  be  contended  that  any  series 
of  facts,  as  yet  discovered  by  science,  tends  to  es- 
tablish a  doctrine  of  mutation  of  species.  Indica- 
tions there  have  been  sufficiently  curious,  and  fit- 
ted to  arrest  the  inductive  inquirer  as  to  the  sup- 
posed accuracy  of  his  specific  distinctions,  but 
certainly  no  foundation  whatever  for  denying  the 
reality  of  such  distinctions.  Nay,  the  fact  that  or- 
ganisms generally  are  modifiable  within  certain 
limits,  but  not  beyond  them — that  this  is  the  un- 
questionable law  of  organic  species  within  the  his- 
torical period,  would  seem  to  imply  that  there  is, 
in  all  cases,  a  set  boundary  to  the  operation  of  ex- 
ternal influences.  Definite  variability  within  the 
range  of  species  would  seem  to  form  just  the  most 
strongly  presumptive  evidence  of  the  substantive 
and  radical  distinction  of  species.  This  is  clearly 
the  truth  to  which  the  "  overbalance  of  physiologi- 

*  This  naturally  barren  grass,  according  to  the  alleged  dis- 
covery of  M.  Esprit  Fabre,  is  merely  the  wild  form  of  cultivated 
wheat. 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CREATOR.       87 

cal  authority"  testifies.  The  decision  of  the  au- 
thority is  thus  expressed  by  Dr.  Whewell :  "  There 
is  a  capacity  in  all  species  to  accommodate  them- 
selves, to  a  certain  extent,  to  a  change  of  external 
circumstances,  this  extent  varying  greatly  accord- 
ing to  the  species.  There  may  thus  arise  changes 
of  appearance  or  structure,  and  some  of  these  chan- 
ges are  transmissible  to  the  offspring :  but  the  mu- 
tations thus  superinduced  are  governed  by  constant 
laws,  and  confined  within  certain  limits.  Indefi- 
nite divergence  from  the  original  type  is  not  possi- 
ble ;  and  the  extreme  limit  of  possible  variation 
may  usually  be  reached  in  a  short  period  of  time. 
In  short,  species  have  a  real  existence  in  nature,  and 
a  transmutation  from  one  to  another  does  not  ex- 
ist."* 

We  are  aware  that  it  is  argued  by  the  advocate 
of  development  that  the  law  of  mutation  of  species, 
which  we  fail  to  discover  in  the  present  order  of 
things,  may  yet  have  been  in  active  operation 
throughout  the  lengthened  periods  of  Geological 
history,  in  comparison  with  which  the  years  of 
man's  scientific  observation  of  the  earth  are  not  to 
be  reckoned ;  but  until  he  can  show  this,  it  is  at 
least  the  safer  course  to  abide  by  the  testimony  of 
historical  experience.  Here  and  now  we  perceive 
that  the  law  of  like  from  like  is  the  law  of  organic 
production  ;  and  if  the  fact  of  this  being  the 

*  Indications  of  the  Creator,  p.  100. 


88  THEISM. 

present  law  will  not  perhaps  entitle  us  t©  pro- 
nounce authoritatively  that  it  was  the  law  as  well 
of  the  ancient  periods  of  the  earth,  still  less,  surely, 
are  we  warranted  in  admitting  the  operation  of  a 
wholly  different  law  during  these  periods,  without 
a  wholly  different  kind  of  evidence  from  that  which 
Geology  has  yet  furnished. 

But  even  if  there  were  as  many  presumptions  in 
favor  of  the  theory  of  the  transmutation  of  species 
as  there  are  presumptions  against  it,  there  would 
still  remain  the  stubborn  and  inexplicable  fact  of 
LIFE  (not  to  mention  the  higher  facts  of  Intelligence 
and  Eesponsibility)  in  the  way  of  the'  adoption  of 
the  hypothesis  of  the  Vestiges.  For  it  will  hardly 
be  seriously  maintained  that  any  of  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  explain  by  natural  means 
the  genesis  of  life  from  dead  matter,  deserves  from 
us  other  acknowledgment  than  is  ever  due  to  the 
persevering  and  aspiring  efforts  of  Science,  in  what- 
ever direction.  The  thedry  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion, in  any  shape,  has  undoubtedly  been  losing 
rather  than  gaining  ground  from  the  late  advances 
of  physiology.  Suppositions,  at  one  time  pretty 
generally  entertained,  as  to  the  production  of  infu- 
sory  animalcula  apart  from  ova,  have  been  pro- 
nounced by  Professor  Owen,  in  conformity  with 
the  result  of  his  recent  researches  into  the  various 
modes  of  reproduction  with  which  nature  has 
provided  these  animals,  to  be  "  quite  gratui- 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CREATOR.       89 

tons."*  The  more  thoroughly,  indeed,  the  minuter 
facts  of  nature  are  apprehended — the  more  the 
light  of  science  is  cast  upon  them — only  the  deeper 
becomes  the  mystery  of  Life.  Instead  of  our  ap- 
proaching the  exposure  of  this  secret,  we  are  only 
the  more  fully  taught  that  it  lies  beyond  our  scru- 
tiny, and  must  forever  baffle  our  research. 

In  the  view  of  the  facts  thus  briefly  urged,  which 
leave  the  development  hypothesis  at  the  best  a  mere 
unsupported,  if  not  uninteresting,  conjecture,  it 
can  not  be  doubted  that  the  theory  of  successive 
creations,  defended  by  all  our  highest  Geologists, 
is  the  one  which  has  the  most  claim  to  our  accept- 
ance. It  proceeds  on  an  obvious  basis  of  facts, 
which  not  only  warrants,  but,  in  the  mean  time  at 
least,  seems  to  necessitate  it.  In  tracing  back- 
ward the  Geological  history,  we  meet  with  phe- 
nomena which  do  not  relate  themselves  to  antece- 
dent phenomena  in  the  way  of  natural'  cause  and 
effect.  The  supposition  of  a  Supernatural  or  Cre- 
ative Cause  seems  inevitable.  Be  it  observed  that 
this  theory,  according  to  its  just  meaning,  does  not 
put  itself  forward  as  a  dogma.  It  does  not  inter- 
dict inquiry,  and  pronounce  that  there  are  no  links 
of  natural  sequence  between  the  phenomena  in 
question  ;  it  only  states  that  none  such  have  been 
proved.  It  does  not  judge  nature,  but  simply  in- 

*  Lectures  on  Comparative  Anatomy,  vol.  ii.  p.  190,  quoted  by 
Hitchcock  in  his  Religion  of  Geology,  p.  269. 


90  THEISM. 

terprets  it ;  asserting  merely  as  matter  of  fact,  that 
no  such  links  have  been  exposed ;  that  in  our  re- 
trogressive ascent  along  the  course  of  creation  we 
reach  gaps  in  the  evolution  of  physical  sequences — 
points  which  yield  no  natural  explanation,  and 
which  therefore  necessitate  a  Supernatural.  We 
trace  backward  the  threads  of  physical  relations, 
till  we  can  go  no  further  by  the  boldest  light  of 
Science,  until,  by  the  very  penetrating  blaze  of  its 
torch,  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  directly 
Creative  Power-. 

In  thus  recognizing  successive  interventions  of 
direct  Creative  Power  in  the  Geological  history,  we 
do  not  for  a  moment  necessarily  deny  the  presence 
of  a  general  order  of  procession  among  the  phe- 
nomena of  creation.  The  advocates  of  develop- 
ment have  indeed  dexterously  sought  to  represent 
their  theory  as  the  only  possible  conception  of  pro- 
cesssional  "order,  applied  to  the  universe.  They 
have  put  the  question  as  between  it  and  any  intel- 
ligible theory  at  all.  But  this  is  wholly  unwar- 
rantable ;  for  it  surely  is  not  in  the  least  degree 
necessary  that  we  hold  that  the  whole  process  of 
creation  has  been  a  mere  evolution  from  primordial 
principles  at  first  imparted  to  matter — that,  in  the 
language  of  Dr.  Whewell,  "Life  grows  out  of  dead 
matter,  the  higher  animals  out  of  the  lower,  and  man 
out  of  brutes"* — in  order  to  be  able  to  discover  a 

*  Dr.  WHEWELL'S  Indications,  Preface,  p.  12. 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CKEATOB.       91 

true  and  vast  order  of  progress  in  the  course  of 
creation.  Such  a  merely  mechanical  development 
appears,  on  the  contrary,  from  its  very  affectation 
of  simplicity,  to  be  an  ambiguous  and  suspicious 
conception.  In  any  case  it  can  have  no  claim,  a 
priori,  to  represent  the  process  of  creation ;  and 
they  who  discredit  it  are  not  to  be  supposed  -at  all 
insensible  "  to  the  wonderful  order  and  harmony, 
the  gradations  and  connections,  which  run  through 
the  forms  of  animal  life,  and  enable  the  anatomist 
and  physiologist  to  pass  in  thought,  along  the  un- 
broken line,  from  the  rudest  and  simplest  organic 
germs  to  the  most  completely  developed  animal 
structure."* 

The  idea  of  an  ascensional  order  of  creation  is 
one  which,  in  our  opinion,  the  Christian  Theist  is 
by  no  means  called  upon  to  dispute  ;  and  perhaps 
it  will  be  admitted,  on  a  calm  review  of  the  recent 
controversy  on  the  subject,  that  too  much  anxiety 
has  been  evinced  to  break  up  the  alleged  evidence 
of  ascension — of  development,  in  a  true  sense,  upon 
which  the  author  of  the  Vestiges  has  founded  his 
conclusions.  Even  should  the  supposed  discovery 
of  vertebrated  fossils  in  the  lower  Silurian  rocks, 
as  recently  reported,  be,  in  the  end,  able  to  sustain 
itself,  this  would  by  no  means  settle  the  matter 
against  the  theory  of  ascent.  It  would  by  no 
means  follow  that  the  course  of  creation  may  not 

*  Dr.  WHEWELL'S  Indications,  Preface,  p.  13. 


92  THEISM. 

have  been,  as  a  whole,  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher,  although  we  may  yet  discover  the  highest 
animals  in  the  lowest  stratified  rocks.  Such  a  dis- 
covery would,  no  doubt,  bear  with  damaging  effect 
against  the  author  of  the  Vestiges,  but  it  would  not 
at  all  necessarily  destroy  a  rational  theory  of  de- 
velopment. It  does  not  and  can  not  overturn  the 
idea  of  a  regular  procession  of  species;  it  only 
removes  the  date  and  verge  of  that  procession 
further  back.  This  is  all  that  such  a  discovery 
would  necessarily  imply ;  and  as  Theism  has  noth- 
ing to  dread  from  the  idea  of  a  processional  ad- 
vance from  the  lower  to  the  higher  types  of  being, 
rightly  apprehended — while  this  idea  is  one  which 
commends  itself  by  its  suggestive  grandeur — we 
do  not  see  that  it  should  either  attract  suspicion  or 
provoke  refutation. 

If  only  we  hold  by  the  clear  conception  of  the 
course  of  nature — or,  in  other  words,  Providence — 
being  nothing  else  than  a  continued  forth-putting 
of  originally  Creative  Energy,  we  shall  see  nothing 
to  surprise  us  in  the  gradual  rise  and  ever-expand- 
ing development  of  new  forms  of  being  along  the 
march  of  creation.  These  will  seem  to  us,  on  the 
contrary,  just  what  we  might  expect,  so  far  as  our 
expectations  have  any  claim  to  be  regarded  in  the 
matter ;  only  brighter  flashings,  as  it  were,  of  the 
Divine  Presence,  here  and  there,  along  the  ex- 
tended scroll  of  creation,  telling  more  directly 


SPECIAL    EVIDENCE    OF    A    CKEATOIl.       93 

of  the  radiant  Power  which  it  every  where  re- 
veals. 

And  this  view  is  that  which  no  less  tells  most 
decisively  against  the  hypothesis  of  the  Vestiges. 
It  is  the  same  vicious  metaphysical  assumption 
which  we  have  seen  to  underlie  the  reasoning  of 
the  Positive  School  as  to  the  direct  action  of  Divine 
Will  being  something  necessarily  irregular — being 
what  is  called  (in  language  which  concentrates  the 
whole  perverted  essence  of  the  assumption)  an 
"interference."  It  is  undoubtedly  this  vicious 
idea,  as  to  a  necessary  opposition  between  law  and 
Creative  Will,  which  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole 
reasoning  of  the  Vestiges,  and  forms  the  most  vital 
question  between  the  author  and  his  opponents. 
But  why,  we  may  surely  ask,  should  direct  Creat- 
ive action  be  necessarily  conceived  of  as  an  inter- 
ference, and,  as  such,  unworthy  of  the  Infinite 
repose  and  majesty  of  God  ?*  What  is  law  itself, 
according  to  the  clear  admission  of  the  writer,  but 
a  mode  of  the  Divine  Efficiency — an  expression  of 
the  Divine  Mind  or  Will  ?  What  is  it  that- consti- 
tutes the  permanence  which  we  peculiarly  ascribe 
to  law — to  the  order  of  Providence — but  the  con- 
tinued forth-putting  of  that  Efficiency  ?  Were 
this  forth -putting  to  cease  any  moment,  the  law 

*  Every  one  familiar  with  the  Vestiges  will  recall  how  re- 
peatedly the  author  falls  back  upon  this  assumption  as  to  the 
Divine  character  and  mode  of  action.  It  is  the  pervading  idea, 
*u  fact,  in  which  the  book  obviously  originated. 


94  THEISM. 

would  disappear,  the  course  of  Providence  would 
dissolve  and  vanish  away.  Now,  because  God, 
for  obvious  reasons,  maintains  the  forth-puttings 
of  His  Efficient  Energy,  after  certain  modes  which, 
collectively,  we  call  Nature,  why  should  this  ex- 
clude new  and  special  forth-puttings  of  that  energy, 
when  He  may  see  meet — in  other  words,  when  fit- 
ting occasions  may  arise  ?  Why  should  such  fresh 
expressions  of  Creative  Power  be  supposed  to  be 
irregularities,  "  interferences"  in  the  great  plan  of 
creation — and  not,  as  according  to  the  genuine 
theistic  conception  they  truly  are,  parts  in  the  de- 
velopment of  that  great  plan  contemplated  from 
the  first  ?  Is  not  the  former  supposition  the  one 
which  truly  degrades  that  Infinite  Being,  who 
knoweth  all  His  works  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end? 

The  truth  is,  it  is  only  the  most  deep-seated  an- 
thropomorphism (which  is  yet  the  peculiar  con- 
tempt of  Materialism)  that  gives  rise  to  the  imag- 
ination of  a  conflict  between  law  or  order,  and  the 
special. action  of  the  Divine  Will,  in  any  case.  For 
if  we  remove  the  wholly  human  element  of  imper- 
fection, all  such  possible  discrepancy  disappears. 
In  this  conception  of  the  Highest,  all  arbitrariness 
vanishes,  and  the  whole  order  of  nature  is  appre- 
hended as  simply  a  continued  efflux  of  Infinite 
Power  and  Wisdom. 


SECTION    II, 


ILLUSTRATIVE   (INDUCTIVE)   EVIDENCE. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  L 

COSMICAL     ARRANGEMENTS. 

IN  the  course  of  our  previous  argument  we  have 
assumed  that  nature  every  where  presents  an  aspect 
of  ORDER.  This  we  were  quite  warranted  in  doing 
from  the  universal  testimony  of  Science ;  and  on 
this  assumption  our  argument  advanced  directly  to 
its  conclusion.  Mind  was  found  entitled  to  stand 
at  the  head  of  nature  as  its  only  valid  explanation. 
With  a  view,  however,  to  the  complete  exhibition 
of  the  theistic  doctrine,  it  is  necessary  to  return  to 
the  minor  premiss  of  our  syllogism,  and  unfold  it 
at  length.  It  is  only  by  a  detailed  exposition  of 
the  fact  of  order,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  manifold 
forms  in  nature,  that  we  can  fully  show  "  that  there 
is  an  all-powerful,  Wise,  and  Good  Being,  by  whom 
every  thing  exists.1' 

We  begin  our  illustrative  survey  with  the  most 
general  and  comprehensive  phenomena  that  can 
engage  us ;  those,  namely,  disclosed  by  astronomy. 
The  celestial  arrangements  are  at  once  the  most 


98  THEISM. 

simple  and  the  most  magnificent  of  which  we  have 
any  knowledge — the  most  independent,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  most  widely  influential,  of  all  others. 
Astronomical  science,  above  every  other,  has  en- 
larged and  transformed  our  conceptions-  of  the  uni- 
verse. Has  the  grand  utterance  of  ancient  piety, 
"  The  Heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,"  lost  any 
thing  of  its  meaning  in  the  light  of  modern  dis- 
covery ?  Or  have  the  ever-expanding  disclosures 
of  the  telescope  only  added  to  it  a  depth  and  gran- 
deur of  meaning  hitherto  inconceivable  ?  We  will 
endeavor  in  this  chapter  to  find  an  answer  to  these 
questions. 

The  general  character  of  our  solar  system  may 
be  said  to  be  now  familiar  to  the  common  intelli- 
gence. It  is  composed,  so  far  as  has  hitherto  been 
discovered,  of  eight  planetary  bodies  of  what  is 
called  first  class  magnitude,  surrounding  the  sun  at 
different  distances,  with  a  comparatively  numerous 
group  of  smaller  bodies  circling  between  the  orbits 
of  Mars  and  Jupiter.  Previous  to  the  year  1845 
there  were  only  reckoned  four  of  these  lesser 
bodies ;  but,  on  the  8th  of  December  of  that  year, 
a  fifth  member  of  the  group  was  discovered  by 
Hencke ;  and,  since  then,  yearly  observation  has 
been  adding  to  their  number.*  It  is,  moreover, 

*  Tip  to  the  present  date  no  fewer  than  thirty-two  of  these 
smaller  bodies  have  been  discovered,  chiefly  through  the  labors 
of  an  English  observer,  Mr.  Hind. 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.  99 

only  a  few  years  since  the  last  we  know  of  the 
larger  order  of  planets  was  discovered.  Previ- 
ously, Uranus  was  supposed  to  "be  the  outermost  of 
our  system ;  but,  in  the  year  1846,  the  independent 
calculations  of  two  students*  conducted  almost 
simultaneously  to  the  discovery  of  another  plane- 
tary body  removed  far  beyond  the  orbit  of  Uranus, 
and  circling  round  the  sun  in  about  double  its  year. 
The  extent  of  the  solar  system  was  thus  immensely 
augmented.  Before,  it  was  calculated  to  embrace 
a  portion  of  space  not  less  than  three  thousand  six 
hundred  millions  of  miles  in  diameter.  But  now 
tliis  vast  tract  has  been  to  our  view  nearly  doubled. 
Almost  twice  the  distance  of  Uranus,  another 
world  has  been  found  attached  to  our  system,  and 
revolving  in  the  warmth  of  our  sun. 

But  the  solar  system,  stupendous  as  it  is,  occupies 
only  a  small  portion  of  the  expanse  of  space.  Even 
to  the  eye,  that  space  is  seen  to  be  peopled  with  a 
multitude  of  starry  bodies,  of  a  character  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  that  move  around  our  sun ;  and 
the  telescope  brings  into  view  not  merely  thou- 
sands, but  millions  of  these  bodies.  The  great 
zone  of  the  Milky  Way,  which  has  in  all  ages  ar- 
rested attention  from  its  peculiar  appearance,  is 
found,  on  the  application  of  the  telescope,  to  verify 
the  conjecture  of  an  ancient  philosopher,  and  to  be 
nothing  else  than  a  pathway  of  stars,  so  densely 

*  Leverrier  and  Adams. 


100  THEISM. 

crowded  as  to  be  separately  indistinguishable  to  the 
unaided  eye.  These  countless  orbs  Science  teaches 
us  to  regard  as  suns  similar  to  our  own,  with  atten- 
dant planetary  trains,  although  actual  traces  of 
these  latter  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  yet  discov- 
ered. Every  bright  and  twinkling  point  above  us, 
that  seems  to  stand  as  a  mere  brilliant  gem  in  the 
nocturnal  crown  of  our  earth,  is  probably  the  lumi- 
nous center  of  a  system  often  far  exceeding  that  to 
which  we  belong.  For,  shining  as  many  of  the 
stars  do,  with  a  brilliancy  greatly  more  intense 
than  that  of  our  sun  (Sirius  is  reckoned  equal  to 
sixty-three  suns),  it  is  only  a  likely  inference  that 
they  irradiate  and  control  much  vaster  systems. 

But  not  only  has  Science  taught  us  to  see  in  tbe 
starry  firmament  unnumbered  repetitions  of  simple 
systems  resembling  our  own  ;  it  has,  moreover,  dis- 
closed binary  systems,  and  even  triple  and  quad- 
ruple, and  higher  combinations,  all  entering  into 
the  scheme  of  the  stellar  universe.  The  mind  is 
thus  not  only  transported  in  space  far  beyond  our 
system  ;  the  magnitudes  and  distances  with  which 
it  makes  us  familiar  are  not  only  enlarged  beyond 
all  our  powers  of  imagination— the  nearest  star 
(«  Centauri)  being  not  fewer  than  twenty  millions 
of  millions  of  miles  away  from  us.  or  about  seven 
.  hundred  times  farther  removed  from  our  sun  than 
the  planet  Neptune ; — we  are  further  introduced 
into  wholly  new  orders  of  worlds,  marked  by  the 


mf\ 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.          101 


most  wonderful  diversities.  What  strange  and  in- 
teresting changes  alone  must  result  from  the  sim- 
plest of  the  combinations  which  we  have  mentioned ! 
If  we  suppose,  as  it  is  allowable  to  do,  that  each 
of  the  suns  in  such  a  system  has  its  attendant 
planets,  how  novel  the  physical  conditions !  how 
singular  the  complexities  of  relationship  which 
they  must  present !  "  Besides  passing  through  the 
varying  climates  of  a  year,  depending  on  its  revo- 
lution around  it  own  luminary,  every  planet  of 
either  system  must  undergo  the  changes  of  another 
cycle,  whose  course  is  the  great  period  of  the 
Binary  system,  and  which  at  one  of  its  terms  must 
subject  it  to  the  influence  of  two  suns  virtually  in 
contact !  And  as  to  the  movements  of  bodies  acted 
on  by  forces  so  strange  and  fluctuating,  we  can 
have  little  other  idea  except  that  it  is  a  sequence  or 
succession  of  louleversements,  the  virtual  periodic 
overthrowing  by  each  sun  of  the  independence  of 
the  system  established  by  the  other,  which  again  is 
to  recover  itself  in  so  far  during  the  years  leading  to 
their  elongation."*  If  we  add  to  these  considerations 
the  well-ascertained  fact  of  the  diversity  of  color 
which  distinguishes  not  a  few  of  the  double  stars,  f 

*  NICHOL'S  Architecture  of  the  Heavens,  p.  217. 

f  Struve  records  that  in  at  least  one  hundred  and  four  binary 
systems  the  two  stars  exhibit  the  complementary  colors — that 
is,  the  color  of  one  constituent  belongs  to  the  red  or  least  re- 
frangible end  of  the  spectrum,  while  that  of  the  other  belongs 
to  the  violet  or  most  refrangible  extremity. — Ibid.,  p.  218. 


102  THEISM. 

we  shall  derive  a  still  more  striking  impression 
of  the  peculiarities  of  Existence  to  be  found  in 
the  stellar  spaces — peculiarities  doubtless  increas- 
ing in  novelty  and  intricacy  with  the  ascend- 
ing complexity  of  the  starry  groups.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  Sir  John  Herschel,  "  it  may  be  easier  sug- 
gested in  words  than  conceived  in  imagination 
what  a  variety  of  illumination  two  stars — a  red 
and  a  green,  or  a  yellow  and  blue  one — must  afford 
a  planet  circulating  around  either;  and  what  cheer- 
ing contrasts  and  grateful  vicissitudes — a  red  and 
a  green  day,  for  instance,  alternating  with  a  white 
one  and  with  darkness — must  arise  from  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  one  or  other,  or  both,  from  the 
horizon !" 

But  all  this  even  by  no  means  exhausts  the  ex- 
tent of  view  or  variety  of  cosmieal  life  which  the 
telescope  has  revealed  to  us.  We  are  enabled,  by 
the  light  of  recent  astronomy,  to  penetrate  to  still 
vaster  depths  and  hitherto  unimagined  worlds.  In 
various  quarters  of  the  heavens  the  telescope  has 
discovered  patches  of  dim  hazy  light,  now  well 
known  by  the  name  of  Nebulae.  Some  of  these 
were  from  the  first  recognized  to  be  dense  clusters 
of  stars,  only  rendered  indistinct  and  nebulous 
from  their  immense  remoteness ;  others,  however, 
were  supposed  to  possess  a  quite  distinct  character 
—to  be  portions  of  diffused  gaseous  matter  inca- 
pable of  being  resolved  by  any  telescopic  power, 


hnt 


C  O  S  M  I  C  A  L    ARRANGEMENTS.         103 


but,  as  was  conjectured,  in  the  course  of  being  con 
densed  into  separate  stars.  And  so  generally  did 
this  view  prevail  for  a  while,  that  an  hypothesis 
was  built  upon  it  to  explain  the  whole  course  of 
cosmical  creation.  Many  of  the  phenomena,  how- 
ever, upon  which  this  hypothesis  rested,  have  been 
found  to  lose  their  supposed  character  of  distinc- 
tion under  the  application, of  Lord  Eosse's  magnifi- 
cent telescope,  so  recently  brought  to  the  service 
of  astronomy.  Nebulous  masses,  previously  irre- 
solvable, have  been  at  once  resolved  by  it.  What 
had  seemed  only  dim  patches  of  twilight  haze,  as 
yet  unformed  into  suns,  are  discovered  to  be  already 
systems  of  countless  suns  glowing  with  ancient  fire. 
The  great  conclusion  to  which  these  nebulous 
phenomena  every  where  point  is,  that  the  starry 
firmament  of  which  our  system  is  a  part,  is  only  a 
member  of  innumerable  galaxies  of  firmaments 
that  people  the  tracts  of  space.  The  millions  of 
suns  that  shoot  toward  us  their  arrowy  light  from 
such  immeasurable  distances,  and  the  millions  of 
systems  attached  to  them,  are  after  all,  as  it  were, 
an  insignificant  portion  of  the  suns  and  systems 
that  actually  exist.  Beyond  the  limits  of  our 
sidereal  firmament,  and  with  what  spaces  of  desert 
and  trackless  gloom  intervening  we  can  not  in  the 
feeblest  degree  imagine,  there  lie  other  firmaments, 
it  may  be  far  vaster  and  grander  than  our  own. 
Looking  out  far  beyond  the  milk-white  girdle  of  our 


104  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

own  galaxy,  we  are  transported  into  regions  where 
other  galaxies  lie  all  around,  some  of  them  of  the 
most  strange  and  marvelously  impressive  shapes. 
"  Improbable  as  it  must  have  seemed,"  says  Dr. 
Nichol,*  "  previous  to  discovery  by  unimpeachable 
observation,  the  spiral  figure  is  characteristic  of  an 
extensive  class  of  galaxies.  Majestic  associations  of 
orbs,  arranged  in  this  winding  form — branches,  as 
above,  issuing  like  a  divergent  geometric  curve 
from  a  globular  cluster — these  rise  up  on  all  sides 
as  the  telescope  journeys  onward,  supplanting 
shapes  formerly  imagined  to  be  most  simple,  be- 
cause of  their  obscurity."  Unexhausted  marvels 
thus  crowd  upon  us  as  we  penetrate  into  space ;  for, 
after  all  that  the  telescope  has  even  now  revealed,  we 
know  not  what  may  still  lie  beyond.  When  we 
remember  that,  in  order  to  enable  us  to  see  anything 
by  the  telescope  or  otherwise,  light  must  reach  us 
from  it,  may  there  not  be  firmaments  so  immeasur- 
ably distant  as  to  be  beyond  our  utmost  powers  of 
vision?  So  distant  are  some  of  the  ascertained 
nebulae  that  their  light  is  not  supposed  to  reach  us 
in  less  than  fifty  thousand  or  sixty  thousand  years. 
How  true  it  may  be,  then,  that  there  may  be  many 
starry  shores  in  the  sea  of  immensity,  bright  with 
a  beauty  of  their  own,  no  ray  from  which  ever 
shines  on  us. 

If  we  now  turn  from  the  first  bewildering  view 

*  Architecture  of  the  Heavens,  p.  94. 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.         105 

of  these  vast  cosmical  revelations  to  contemplate 
them  more  steadily,  we  find  throughout  all  the 
august  presence  of  ORDER.  Even  in  those  twilight 
regions,  in  which  the  telescope  is  our  only  guide, 
and  among  phenomena  whose  very  existence  it 
strugglingly  essays  to  determine,  we  find  ever, 
along  with  the  mere  fact  of  existence,  indications 
of  arrangement.  Speaking  of  those  most  recent 
marvels  of  cosmical  being,  the  spiral  nebula,  Dr. 
Nichol  testifies  that,  mysterious  and  bewildering  as 
seem  such  shapes,  they  "  have  nothing  in  common 
with  the  fantastic  creations  of  a  dream.  It  is  the 
essence  of  these  nebulae  that  they  are  not  formless, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  impressed  indelibly  by  system 
on  the  grandest  scale :  clearly  as  a  leaf,  they  have 
an  organism  ;  something  has  seized  on  their  enor- 
mous volumes,  and  molded  them  into  a  wonderful 
order."* 

Passing  to  our  own  galaxy,  and  the  diversified 
phenomena  which  it  presents,  we  can,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  trace  more  distinctly  the  indications  of 
system.  Besides  the  motions  to  which  we  have 
already  referred  of  multiple  stars  around  one  an- 
other, revealing  such  grand  and  peculiar  varieties 
of  order,  it  may  now  be  said  to  be  established  that 
there  is  a  general  motion  pervading  our  galaxy. 
So  long  ago  as  1783,  Sir  William  Herschel  was  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  of  our  sun  being  in  movement, 

*  Architecture  of  the  Heavens,  p.  100. 

5* 


106  THEISM. 

and  this  fact  has  at  length  been  amply  verified.  The 
sun's  course  is  found  to  be  toward  the  constellation 
Hercules,  and  the  rate  even  of  his  progress  has 
been  calculated.  As  there  can  exist  no  doubt  that 
this  solar  motion  is  only  a  type  of  what  prevails 
among  the  stars  generally,  we  are  thus  led  to  the 
conclusion  of  a  grand  galactic  movement.  What- 
ever credit  may  be  due  to  Professor  Madler's  conject- 
ure, that  the  present  position  of  one  of  the  Pleiades 
(the  star  Alcyone)  represents  the  apparent  position 
of  the  common  center  of  force  to  the  firmamental 
system,  there  can  not  be  any  question  that  our  sun 
and  the  other  stars  are  revolving  round  such  a  dis- 
tant center.  And  this  mighty  movement,  however 
we  may  more  particularly  regard  it,  is  a  vast  har- 
monious one,  shared  in  by  the  several  orbitual 
systems.  The  subordinate  movements  of  so  much 
variety  and  complexity  unite  in  the  general  pro- 
cession, which  sways,  as  with  an  instinct  of  brother- 
hood, all  the  members  of  the  galaxy.  There  is  no 
appearance  of  disorder  or  disruption.  One  vast 
government  guides  the  whole. 

As  far  as  we  can  penetrate,  therefore,  and  where- 
ever  we  trace  existence,  we  trace,  at  the  same  time, 
order.  The  discoveries  of  astronomy,  in  their 
widest  and  most  marvelous  bearings,  are  simply 
revelations  of  hitherto  hidden  harmonies. 

And  as  we  descend  from  these  loftier  stellar 
spaces — in  which,  with  all  we  see,  we  still  see  so 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.          107 


imperfectly — to  the  sphere  of  our  own  system, 
whose  magnitudes  and  movements  have  been  so 
accurately  determined,  we  find  evidences  of  ar- 
rangement to  multiply  around  us.  This  is  only 
what  we  might  expect.  "While  traveling,  by  the 
help  of  the  telescope,  in  regions  so  remote  as  those 
of  stellar  existence,  we  can  but  faintly  note  the 
special  combinations  which  there  exist.  It  is  only 
far-off  and  partial  glimpses  of  those  higher  mechan- 
isms we  can  catch.  Darkness  still  overhangs  the 
bright  route  of  the  telescope.  It  is  enough  that 
what  we  do  see  every  where  speaks  of  order. 

But  in  the  contemplation  of  our  own  planetary 
system,  we  are  not  only  able  to  mark  the  general 
presence  of  order — we  can  note  and  appreciate,  more- 
over, the  several  special  conditions  entering  into 
the  construction  of  the  system,  and  on  which,  as 
well  as  on  the  great  pervading  energies  of  attrac- 
tion and  impulse,  its  maintenance  depends.  These 
conditions  are  all  so  many  instances  of  arrangement. 
This  has  been  recently  so  well  shown  by  Dr. 
Whewell  in  his  Bridge  water  Treatise,  that  nothing 
almost  remains  to  be  added  to  his  impressive 
argument.  "We  merely  present  one  or  two  of  its 
features. 

Among  the  most  marked  characteristics  of  our 
system  is  the  luminous  nature  of  its  central  body, 
Nowhere  else,  obviously,  could  light  have  been 
placed  with  equal  advantage  for  diffusion  through^ 


108  THEISM. 

out  the  entire  system.  Now,  whence  this  light  ? 
It  can  not  be  said  that  there  is  any  necessary  con- 
nection between  the  mere  matter  of  the  sun  and  its 
luminousness.  According  to  the  conjectures  of 
astronomers,  indeed,  the  heat  and  light  of  the  sun 
are  not  supposed  to  reside  in  its  mass,  but  in  a 
coating  or  envelop  which  surrounds  it.  Why,  then, 
should  it  come  to  pass  that  this  coating  of  light 
should  be,  among  the  bodies  of  the  system,  confined 
to  the  sun,  just  where  it  is  peculiarly  adapted  for 
use  ?  The  mere  position  of  the  sun  can  not  furnish 
any  adequate  explanation  of  this.  Its  position 
displays  the  fitness  of  the  fact ;  but  we  are  unable 
to  recognize  any  necessity  for  the  fact  in  the  posi- 
tion. The  only  admissible  conclusion  is,  that  this 
was  an  express  arrangement  designed  for  the  pur- 
pose which  it  so  obviously  serves.  Newton  was 
particularly  impressed  with  the  force  of  this  conclu- 
sion. In  the  first  of  his  famous  series  of  letters  to 
Bentley,  he  has  expressed  it  with  his  wonted  sim- 
plicity and  force.  Allowing  that  matter  would 
collect  into  masses  by  the  power  of  attraction,  he 
believes  that  the  sun  and  fixed  stars  might  thus  be 
formed,  supposing  the  matter  were  of  a  lucid  na- 
ture, **  But  how,"  he  continues,  "  the  matter  should 
divide  itself  into  two  sorts,  and  that  part  of  it 
which  is  fit  to  compose  a  shining  body  should  fall 
down  into  one  mass  and  make  a  sun,  and  the  rest, 
which  is  fit  to  compose  an  opaque  body,  should 


COSMIC  AL    ARRANGEMENTS.         109 


coalesce,  not  into  one  great  body,  like  the  shining 
matter,  but  into  many  little  ones;  or  if  the  sun 
were  at  first  an  opaque  body  like  the  planets,  or 
the  planets  lucid  bodies  like  the  sun,  how  he  alone 
should  be  changed  into  a  shining  body,  while  all 
they  continue  opaque;  or  all  they  be  changed 
into  opaque  ones,  while  he  continued  unchanged — 
I  do  not  think  explicable  by  mere  natural  causes, 
but  am  forced  to  ascribe  it  to  the  counsel  and  con- 
trivance of  a  voluntary  Agent." 

The  uniform  character  of  the  planetary  motions 
present  striking  evidence  of  order.  "We  find  these 
motions  to  be  all  in  nearly  circular  orbits  in  the 
same  direction,  and  in  nearly  the  same  plane. 
There  is  here  surely  the  clear  impress  of  arrange- 
ment. For  to  what  can  we  attribute  this  uniformity, 
save  to  a  uniform  determination  of  original  im- 
pulse? "There  is  but  one  circle;  there  are  an 
infinite  number  of  ovals.  Any  original  impulse 
would  give  some  oval,  but  only  one  particular 
impulse,  determinate  in  velocity  and  direction,  will 
give  a  circle.  If  we  suppose  the  planet  to  be 
originally  projected,  it  must  be  projected  perpen- 
dicularly to  its  distance  from  the  sun,  and  with  a 
certain  precise  velocity,  in  order  that  the  motion 
may  be  circular.  .  .  .  No  one  can  believe  that 
the  orbits  were  made  to  be  so  nearly  circles  by 
chance,  any  more  than  he  can  believe  that  a  target, 
such  as  archers  are  accustomed  to  shoot  at,  was 


110  THEISM. 

painted  in  concentric  circles  by  the  accidental 
dashes  of  a  brush  in  the  hands  of  a  blind  man."* 
And  this  conviction  is  greatly  heightened  when  we 
bring  into  view  the  further  features  of  the  planetary 
motions.  For  any  thing  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
that  we  can  see,  any  one  of  the  planets  might  have 
moved  in  a  different  direction,  or  in  a  different 
plane;  but  not  one  of  them  does  so.  It  is  not 
merely  a  single  uniformity  which  characterizes 
their  motions,  but  they  present  exactly  the  same 
combination  of  uniformities.  The  inference  seems 
irresistible,  that  such  a  combination  of  identical 
results  could  only  spring  from  an  identity  of 
purpose. 

But  the  proof  of  arrangement  comes  out  most 
strongly  when  we  contemplate  the  great  end  which 
these  uniformities  of  planetary  movement  subserve 
in  the  maintenance  of  the  system.  Had  a  different 
determination  been  given  to  any  one  of  the  ele- 
ments of  this  movement,  it  is  demonstrable  that 
the  stability  of  the  system  would  have  been 
impaired. 

Had,  for  example,  the  orbits  of  the  planets  been 
of  extremely  varied  eccentricity,  instead  of  being, 
as  they  are,  nearly  circular — had  they  moved  in 
different  directions,  or  in  different  planes,  it  is  un- 
doubted that,  under  the  existing  law  of  gravitation, 
their  mutual  interferences  would  have  terminated 

*  Dr.  WHEWELL'S  Bridgewater  Treatise,  pp.  154,  156, 


,. 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.         Ill 


in  confusion  and  destruction.  Even  as  it  is,  the 
attraction  of  the  planets  upon  one  another,  as  well 
as  upon  the  sun,  results  in  a  partial  derangement, 
which,  however  insignificant  over  a  given  space  of 
time,  it  was  for  a  time  supposed  might,  in  the  lapse 
of  ages,  end  in  breaking  up  the  system.  Under  the 
influence  of  their  mutual  attraction,  changes  are 
actually  going  on  in  the  motions  of  the  planetary 
bodies  ;  the  eccentricity  of  the  earth's  orbit  is  di- 
minishing, the  moon  is  approaching  nearer  the 
earth,  and  its  motion  in  consequence  becoming  ac- 
celerated. So  slight,  indeed,  is  the  course  of  these 
changes,  and  so  vast  the  cycle  in  which  they  run, 
that  they  have  been  going  on  progressively  from 
the  earliest  observations  to  our  own  times.  Yet, 
if  they  were  unlimited,  it  can  not  be  doubted  that 
they  would  at  length  reach  a  climax  of  subversion 
and  ruin.  And  for  some  time  it  was  really  uncer- 
tain whether  our  system  might  not  thus  be  tend- 
ing, from  the  inherent  character  of  its  constitution, 
to  decay.  Newton  did  not  undertake  to  pronounce 
upon  the  question  ;  but  Lagrange  and  Laplace  suc- 
ceeded in  showing  that  this  partial  derangement, 
extending  over  such  lengthened  periods,  was  yet 
only  of  limited  operation.  After  reaching  a  cer- 
tain stage,  reaction  ensues.  The  orbits  do  not  con- 
tinue to  deviate  in  one  direction ;  but  they  deviate 
periodically  now  in  this,  and  now  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  planetary  perturbations  are  not  in- 


112  THEISM. 

definitely  progressive,  long  as  they  continue  in  one 
direction,  but  oscillatory.  After  reaching  a  certain 
height  they  return  and  correct  themselves.  And 
what  chiefly  deserves  our  attention  is,  that  the 
special  conditions  of  this  periodical  adjustment  of 
the  planetary  system  are  those  uniformities  of 
movement  which  so  prominently  characterize  the 
various  bodies  of  the  system.  "  I  have  succeeded," 
says  Laplace,  fin  demonstrating  that  whatever  be 
the  masses  of  the  planets,  in  consequence  of  the 
fact  that  they  all  move  in  the  same  direction,  in  orbits 
of  small  eccentricity,  and  slightly  inclined  to  each  other, 
their  secular  inequalities  are  periodical,  and  includ- 
ed within  narrow  limits;  so  that  the  planetary  sys- 
tem will  only  oscillate  about  a  mean  state,  and  will 
never  deviate  from  it  except  by  a  very  small  quan- 
tity:"* 

When  we  turn  from  these  special  characteristics 
of  the  planetary  movements  to  the  great  law  ex- 
pressed in  all,  and  under  which  they  all  proceed, 
the  same  aptitude  of  appointment  meets  us.  While 
it  can  not  be  said  that  of  all  laws  that  of  gravitation 
is  the  only  conceivable  one,  the  only  one  compati- 
ble with  the  maintenance  of  the  system,  it  has  yet 
been  shown,  in  the  clearest  manner,  that  of  all 
others  this  law  is  at  once  the  most  fitting  and  the 
most  simple.  It  is  owing  alone  to  the  particular 

*  Systeme  du  Monde,  book  iv.  chap.  ii.  p.  226,  quoted  by  Dr. 
Whewell,  p.  164. 


me 


COSMIC  Ah    ARRANGEMENTS.          113 


measure  of  the  attractive  force  that  the  planets  re- 
turn regularly  in  the  same  track,  preserving  with 
very  slight  deviations  the  same  periods  in  their 
revolutions.  Had  this  force  varied  otherwise  than 
inversely  with  the  square  of  the  distance,  this  regu- 
larity in  the  orbits  of  the  planets  would  have  been 
entirely  destroyed.*  It  is  remarkable,  moreover, 
that  this  is  the  only  law  save  that  of  direct  distance 
(otherwise  unsuitable)  which  is  the  same  for  spher- 
ical masses,  such  as  the  planets,  and  for  the  separate 
particles  composing  them.  This  is  surely  a  signi- 
ficant and  wonderful  provision.  The  mind  is  filled 
with  a  solemn  sense  of  simplicity  as  it  contem- 
plates the  varied  and  beautiful  operation  of  such 
a  law,  alike  binding  the  dew  into  glistening  gems, 
and  holding  the  planets  and  the  stars  in  their 
courses. 

On  the  whole,  we  perceive  every  where  among 
the  celestial  phenomena,  adaptation.  Order  meets 
us  wherever  we  turn  our  gaze.  The  old  atheistic 
notion  of  chance  has  wholly  disappeared  before  the 
discoveries  of  science.  Every  where,  therefore,  in 
the  course  of  our  survey,  the  theistic  conclusion  is 
impressively  forced  upon  us.  The  agency  of  a 
mighty  Mind,  working  in  all  this  order,  is  irresist- 
ibly manifested.  As  of  old,  the  "  heavens  declare 
the  glory  of  God."  In  the  language  of  Newton, 
"  Elegantissima  hcecce  compages  solis,  planetarum  et 
*  Dr.  WHEWELL'S  Bridgewater  Treatise,  p.  220. 


114  THEISM. 

cometarum  (et  stellarum)  non  nisi  consilio  et  dominio 
Entis  cujusdam  potentis  et  intelligentis  oriri  pof.uit." 

In  this  conclusion  we  might  rest  securely  on  the 
grounds  already  laid  down.  It  is  irrefragable,  on 
our  general  basis  of  reason.  In  reference,  however, 
to  certain  objections  which  have  been  specially  urg- 
ed against  it  in  this  region,  it  deserves  some  further 
attention.  Astronomy  is  the  favorite  sphere  of  the 
scientific  materialist.  Whatever  sciences  may  still 
linger  within  the  domain  jof  theology,  this  is  con- 
sidered finally  emancipated  from  its  control.  Those 
same  facts  which  to  the  reverent  mind  of  Newton 
were  so  irresistibly  demonstrative  of  Divine  power 
and  wisdom,  to  the  minds  of  others  are  only  indic- 
ative of  a  vast  necessity,  which,  unintelligent  in  its 
character,  is  by  no  means  to  be  considered  perfect 
in  its  working.  And  this  antagonism  of  opinion, 
of  ancient  date,  continues  to  live,  and  even  to  de- 
velop itself  with  clearer  prominence  than  ever,  in 
our  present  modes  of  thought. 

According  to  the  modern  school  of  scientific  ma- 
terialists, the  planetary  and  cosmical  order  is  suffi- 
ciently explained  by  the  law  of  gravity.  It  is 
simply  the  necessary  result  of  this  law,  beyond 
which,  as  an  explanation  of  the  universe,  we  are 
not  competent  to  go.  This  mode  of  explanation, 
if  not  distinctly  announced  by  Laplace  himself,  has 
sought  confirmation  in  the  tone  of  his  reasoning  in 
different  parts  of  the  Sys&me  du  Monde,  and  espe- 


cia 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.          115 


ciallj  in  his  famous  cosmogonic  hypothesis.  La- 
place certainly  discarded  all  notion  of  design  in 
connection  with  the  planetary  mechanism  as  un- 
philosophical,  and  even  ventured  to  point  out  in 
one  instance,  in  regard  to  the  motion  of  the  moon, 
how  it  might  have  been,  for  the  bestowal  of  light, 
more  advantageously  arranged.* 

M.  Comte  has,  however,  outstripped  his  master, 
and  declares  the  inconsistency  of  astronomy  not 
only  with  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  but  with 
every  idea  of  religion.  He  ridicules  the  grand  sen- 
timent of  the  Psalmist  with  which  we  set  out,  and 
pronounces  that  to  minds  "  early  familiarized  with 
true  philosophical  astronomy,  the  heavens  declare 
no  other  glory  than  that  of  Hipparchus,  of  Kepler, 
of  Newton,  and  of  all  those  who  have  aided  in  es- 
tablishing their  laws."  "  No  science,"  he  says, 
"  has  given  more  terrible  shocks  to  the  doctrine  of 
final  causes  than  astronomy.  The  simple  knowl- 
edge of  the  movement  of  the  earth  must  have  de- 
stroyed the  original  and  real  foundation  of  this 
doctrine — the  idea  of  the  universe  subordinated  to 
the  earth,  and  consequently  to  man.  Besides,  the 
accurate  exploration  of  our  solar  system  could  not 
fail  to  dispel  that  blind  and  unlimited  admiration 
which  the  general  order  of  nature  inspired,  by 
showing  in  the  most  sensible  manner,  and  in  a  very 
great  number  of  different  respects,  that  the  orbs 

*  Systeme  du  Monde,  book  iv.  chap.  v.  p.  266. 


116  T  II  E  I  S  M  . 

were  certainly  not  disposed  in  the  most  advanta- 
geous manner,  and  that  science  permitted  us  easily 
to  conceive  a  better  arrangement  by  the  develop- 
ment of  true  celestial  mechanism  since  Newton. 
All  the  theological  philosophy,  even  the  most  per- 
fect, has  been  henceforth  deprived  of  its  principal 
intellectual  function,  the  most  regular  order  being 
thence  consigned  as  necessarily  established  and  main- 
tained in  our  world,  and  even  in  the  whole  uni- 
verse, by  the  simple  mutual  gravity  of  its  several 
parts."* 

The  grounds  on  which  we  rest  the  doctrine  of 
final  causes,  and  on  which  we  consider  it  wholly 
untouched  by  the  discoveries  of  science,  have 
already  been  sufficiently  explained.  All,  there- 
fore, which  demands  our  present  attention  in  this 
famous  classical  passage  of  atheism  is,  the  assertion 
of  the  necessity  and  explanatory  sufficiency  of  the 
law  of  gravity.  Have  we  any  right  to  regard  this 
law  as  necessarily  existent  ?  Would  it  explain  the 
phenomena  in  question  even  if  it  were  ? 

Now,  so  far  from  our  having  any  right  to  regard 
the  law  of  gravity  as  necessarily  existent,  the  truth 
is,  that  it  is  a  mere  assumption  to  speak  of  this  law 
as  existent  by  itself  at  all.  We  know  the  law  in 
certain  phenomena — in  those  orderly  manifestations 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  It  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  relation  of  these  phenomena,  but  noth- 

*  COMTE,  Philosophic  Positive,  tome  ii.  pp.  36-38. 


•mo1 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.         117 


ing  more.  It  is  the  name  by  which  we  generalize 
and  hold  before  our  mind  the  action  of  these  phe- 
nomena, but  nothing  more.  To  regard  it  for  a 
moment,  therefore,  by  itself,  as  a  necessary  power 
or  property,  to  whose  operation  we  can  conceive 
the  cosmical  order  to  be  owing,  is  simply  to  impose 
upon  our  imagination  by  a  fiction  ;  and  if  it  is  not 
so  regarded,  it  amounts  to  nothing  ;  it  explains 
nothing.  It  simply  assigns  for  the  fact  of  the  cos- 
mical order,  the  fact;  while  yet  our  reason  im- 
peratively demands  an  explanatory  origin  of  this 
fact. 

But  even  if  we  allowed  the  necessary  existence 
of  gravity,  it  would  not  explain  the  whole  order 
of  phenomena  before  us.  Even  if  we  granted  it  to 
be  an  independent  property  working  in  matter,  the 
position  of  the  materialist  would  not  be  made  good. 
So  far,  indeed,  it  may  be  admitted,  according  to 
the  Laplacian  cosmogony,  that  the  simple  opera- 
tion of  gravity  would  account  for  the  successive 
formation  of  the  planetary  bodies,  and  their  motion 
round  a  common  center ;  yet  how  much  would  this 
still  leave  unexplained !  Given  the  nebulous  mass 
and  the  force  of  gravity,  it  is  conceivable  that,  un- 
der the  continued  action  of  this  force,  the  mass 
would  be  broken  up  and  condensed  into  separate 
parts,  each  taking  a  necessary  position  and  assum- 
ing a  necessary  motion.  But,  as  has  been  urged, 
whence  the  existence  of  the  nebulous  mass  itself? 


118  THEISM. 

Whence  the  peculiar  character  which  enabled  it  to 
separate  and  contract  in  the  fitting  way,  and  in  no 
other  ?  Whence  the  determinate  velocity  of  the 
primitive  movement,  destined  to  such  results,  and 
no  other  ?  Whence,  particularly,  certain  phenom- 
ena which  do  not  lie  in  the  plane  of  the  planetary 
movements,  nor  proceed  in  the  same  course,  al- 
though, according  to  the  Laplacian  view,  all  the 
generated  motions  must  lie  in  the  same  plane,  and 
be  in  the  same  direction  ?*  To  such  questions  the 
theory  gives  no  answer.  Gravity,  therefore,  even 
if  admitted  to  be  the  cause  of  the  planetary  order 
so  far,  entirely  fails  to  account  for  that  order  as  a 
whole.  Even  if  necessary,  it  is  inadequate  as  a 
source  of  explanation. 

In  truth,  and  in  conclusion,  the  Laplacian  cos- 
mogony, while  interesting  as  a  speculation,  and 
serving  to  point,  as  by  a  venturous  aim,  the  path 
of  knowledge  beyond  the  existing  order  of  things, 
is  yet,  no  less  than  any  other  cosmogonic  theory, 
wholly  worthless  as  a  final  explanation  of  things. 
To  suppose  it  for  a  moment  to  be  such  an  explana- 

*  When  Laplace  proposed  his  hypothesis,  it  was  believed 
that,  not  only  the  planets,  but  their  satellites,  all  moved  in  the 
same  direction,  from  west  to  east ;  "  but  since  that  time,"  says 
Sir  D.  Brewster,  "all  the  satellites  of  Urauus  have  been  found 
to  move  in  an  opposite  direction  ;  and  Mr.  Hind  has  very  re- 
cently found  that  the  satellite  of  Neptune  also  moves  in  the 
opposite  direction  ;  thus  proving  that  the  hypothesis  is  utterly 
incapable  of  explaining  the  celestial  motions." — More  World* 
than  One,  p.  122. 


COSMICAL    ARRANGEMENTS.          119 

tion,  were  not  merely  to  exalt  man  to  be  the  inter- 
preter, but  the  god  of  nature.  It  were  to  constitute 
his  proud  dreams  the  measure  of  existence  in  the 
most  daring  sense,  and  verily,  with  Comte,  to  make 
the  heavens  reflect  his  glory.  The  highest,  which 
is  also  the  most  reverent  reason,  at  once  shrinks 
from  and  contradicts  such  pretensions.  It  allows 
the  speculation  for  what  it  may  be  worth,  but  ut- 
terly disallows  it  as  a  final  efficient  explanation. 
Here,  as  every  where,  we  can  only  rest  in  an  orig- 
inal self-subsistent  Mind,  in  which  the  whole  cos- 
mical  order  lives,  and  from  which  it  ever  proceeds. 
This,  the  conclusion  in  which  the  great  intellect 
of  Newton  rested,  is  that  which  the  common  reason 
universally  demands,  and  in  which  alone  it  can 
find  satisfaction  evermore. 


§  II— CHAPTER    II. 

STRUCTURE    OF    THE    EARTH. 

DESCENDING  from  the  contemplation  of  the  ce- 
lestial order,  in  the  composition  of  which  our  globe 
is  only  an  insignificant  element,  we  turn  our  atten- 
tion to  the  massive  structure  of  that  globe  itself. 
We  carry  our  illustrative  survey  from  the  vast  re- 
gions and  unnumbered  worlds,  lying  all  around  us 
in  space,  and  with  which  we  are  only  enabled  dim- 
ly to  converse,  to  the  bosom  of  that  familiar  earth 
on  which  we  dwell,  and  which  every  where  invites 
our  inspection. 

We  are  prepared  to  trace  order  here,  as  in  the 
far-off  regions  we  have  been  traversing.  To  the 
untutored  eye,  the  mass  of  our  earth  may  seem  a 
mere  vast  conglomeration,  even  as  the  heavens 
seem  a  mere  mazy  dance  of  sparkling  lights ;  but 
as  science  has  disclosed  the  magnificent  system  of 
the  one,  so  has  it  unfolded  the  special  structure  of 
the  other.  As  in  the  heavens  we  still  read  in  the 
blaze  of  modern  astronomy  the  glory  of  God,  so 


STRUCTURE    OF    THE    EARTH.         121 

in  the  crust  of  the  earth  do  we  read,  in  the  light 
of  modern  geology,  the  impress  of  Divine  power 
and  wisdom.  As  we  confine  our  attention  here  to 
the  massive  construction  of  this  crust,  a  few  words 
will  suffice  to  bring  before  us  the  facts  which  the 
subject  involves. 

The  component  rocks  of  the  earth  are  divided 
into  two  great  classes — stratified  and  unstratified. 
The  latter  represent  the  oldest,  and,  so  to  speak, 
the  original  material  of  the  earth.  They  constitute 
its  solid  basement.  The  foundations  of  the  struc- 
ture are  laid  in  granite.  The  hard  and  agglutinated 
character  of  these  rocks  favors  the  supposition  that 
they  were  originally  in  a  state  of  fusion.  There 
can  not,  at  least,  be  any  doubt  that  they  are  of  ig- 
neous production.  Their  unworn  and  angular 
crystals  clearly  point  to  such  a  mode  of  produc- 
tion. 

The  stratified  rocks,  in  all  their  varieties,  present 
different  peculiarities  of  formation.  Those  which 
lie  immediately  above  the  unstratified  granitic  mass, 
closely  resemble  the  latter  in  character:  they  are 
in  fact  composed  of  the  same  constituents,  different 
only  in  the  form  and  proportion  in  which  they  are 
aggregated.  Their  crystalline  texture  betrays  the 
same  fiery  agency  which  discovers  itself  in  the 
parent  rock.  At  the  same  time,  they  bear  marks 
of  distinctive  origin.  Their  crystals  are  worn  and 
abraded  by  the  action  of  atmospheric  and  aqueous 


122  THEISM. 

influences.  Yet  the  igneous  character  is  here  still 
predominant;  and,  as  might  be  expected,  in  the 
fire  locked  embrace  of  these  primary  rocks  there  is 
to  be  found  no  trace  of  organic  existence. 

Above  what  we  may  call  this  hard  and  unfossil- 
iferous  basis,  the  fossiliferous  rocks  rise  in  an  as- 
cending series,  comprehending  various  systems 
which  geologists  have  grouped  into  three  great 
periods  or  epochs,  successively  called  Palaeozoic, 
Secondary,  and  Tertiary.  The  Palaeozoic  group, 
which  is  next  in  age  to  the  metamorphic  rocks, 
comprehends  the  vast  systems  of  the  lower  and 
upper  Silurian,  the  Old  red  sand-stone,  and  the  Coal- 
measures.  The  Crystalline  texture  of  the  previous 
rocks  disappears,  save  among  the  lowest  of  these 
strata,  and  a  clayey  or  sandy  texture  takes  its 
place,  discovering  the  more  powerful  working  of 
those  atmospheric  and  aqueous  influences  which 
we  have  mentioned.  Here,  also — as  the  name  of 
the  group  implies — in  the  Llandeito  flags  of  the 
lower  Silurian,  we  find  the  first  traces  of  organic  be- 
ing, which  henceforth  multiply,  in  endless  and  mar- 
velous forms,  in  the  onward  course  of  the  earth's 
growth.  In  the  great  carboniferous  system  we  per- 
ceive in  a  very  large  degree  the  operation  of  a  fur- 
ther influence  in  the  formation  of  the  earth's  crust — 
the  submersion  and  depression,  namely,  of  organic 
remains.  This,  in  the  ascending  history  of  our 
globe,  is  one  of  the  most  extensive  of  all  the  causes 


STRUCTURE    OF    THE    EARTH.         123 

contributing  to  the  earth's  formation,  in  respect  not 
merely  of  vegetable,  but  also  of  animal  remains. 
The  former,  it  is  well  known,  are  the  peculiar  in- 
gredient of  the  vast  coal-measures.  In  them  we 
behold  the  deposition  of  the  enormous  vegetation 
which,  in  the  carboniferous  era,  must  have  over- 
spread the  earth — vegetation  in  comparison  with 
which,  it  has  been  said,  the  existing  jungle  of  the 
tropics  is  mere  barrenness. 

In  the  secondary  period  we  have,  as  in  the  Palaeo- 
zoic, three  great  systems,  the  New  red  sandstone,  the 
Oolitic,  and  the  Chalk — the  Oolitic  being  especially 
remarkable  as  the  era  of  those  gigantic  reptiles, 
whose  strange  and  fearful  forms  at  once  amaze  the 
ignorant  and  interest  the  curious. 

With  the  tertiary  period — with  whose  subdi- 
visions, as  laid  down  by  Lyell,  and  generally  ac- 
cepted by  geologists,  we  need  not  here  concern  our- 
selves— we  approach  our  own  era.  We  meet  with 
animals  of  dimensions,  indeed,  far  exceeding  any 
with  which  we  are  now  familiar,  but  in  structure 
allied  to  existing  species.  We  are  carried  forward 
to  an  arrangement  of  physical  conditions  not  differ- 
ing widely  from  the  present. 

Such  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  successive  mate- 
rials, so  to  speak,  which  compose  the  structure  of 
the  earth.  Imperfect  as  it  is,  it  is  sufficiently  com- 
plete for  our  purpose.  In  the  mere  facts  thus  dis- 
closed, there  seems  already  evidence  of  the  order 


124  THEISM. 

for  which  we  seek.  The  actual  structure  of  the 
earth,  however,  is  something  very  different  from 
that  now  suggested.  It  is  not  built  up  in  the  man- 
ner we  have  described,  with  the  successive  systems 
regularly  laid  upon  one  another,  as  they  were  pro- 
gressively formed — the  earliest  every  where  lowest, 
and  the  latest  highest.  If  such  had  been  its  actual 
construction,  that  construction  would  probably 
have  forever  remained  a  secret '  to  us.  "We  could 
not  have  penetrated  to  its  deep  and  hidden  founda- 
tions. As  it  is,  however,  we  are  enabled  to  explore 
the  whole  structure,  and  find  order  and  beauty  in 
it,  through  means  which  might  have  seemed  only 
destined  to  insure  its  destruction.  Its  foundations 
have  been  laid  bare  to  us ;  while  its  later  architec- 
ture lies  equally  exposed,  not  in  mere  disrupted 
fragments,  but  in  vast  and  orderly  terraces.  The 
fact  is,  that  in  the  process  of  the  earth's  formation, 
during  the  long  periods  which  had  been  employed 
in  the  gradual  deposition  of  the  various  strata  in 
the  order  of  time  we  have  described,  those  igneous 
agencies  concerned  in  the  production  of  the  earliest 
rocks  continued  at  work,  breaking  up  and  dislocat- 
ing the  incumbent  strata,  and  forcing  the  granite 
upward  in  all  directions. 

To  the  same  causes  the  different  species  of  trap- 
rocks,  piercing  upward  in  great  veins,  owe  their 
elevation — causes  which  we  still  see  in  some  degree 
active  in  our  volcanoes.  Whatever  theory  may  be 


S  T  K  U  C  T  U  K  E    OF    TUB    E  A  K  T  H .         125 

held  as  to  the  special  intensity  of  these  causes  in 
the  past  periods  of  the  earth's  history — whether  we 
adopt  a  catastrophic  or  a  uniformitarian  hypothe- 
sis— the  result  is  the  same.  The  granite,  which  is 
every  where  the  base  of  the  earth's  crust,  has  yet 
been  elevated  far  above  all  the  posterior  strata.  It 
is  no  longer  merely  the  impenetrable  foundation  or 
central  abutment  of  the  rocky  systems ;  but  it 
stretches  upward  in  vast  branches,  forming,  so  to 
speak,  a  skeleton  framework  for  the  earth.  Some- 
what as  the  bony  skeleton  in  the  living  body 
every  where  ramifies  it,  giving  strength  and  con- 
sistency to  all  its  parts,  so  the  granitic  framework 
pierces  on  all  sides  throughout  the  earth's  crust, 
compacting  and  consolidating  it  into  its  present 
state.  And  even  somewhat  as  the  muscular  tissues 
and  folds  of  flesh  overlie  the  bony  skeleton,  and 
find  in  it  their  ultimate  points  of  support,  so  do  the 
various  rocky  tissues,  the  successive  folds  of  softer 
material,  rest  against  the  mountain  masses.  "We 
must  surely  in  all  this  trace  evidence  of  special  ar- 
rangement. "  It  is  not,"  as  Dr.  Chalmers  has  said, 
"  from  some  matter  being  harder  than  others  that 
we  infer  design ;  but  when  we  see  the  harder 
placed  just  where  it  is  most  needed,  the  inference 
seems  irresistible."  And  in  the  present  case  it  is 
surely  impossible  to  contemplate  the  peculiar  dis- 
position of  the  granite  in  our  earth,  without  recog- 
nizing that  so  it  must  have  been  placed.  The  very 


126  THEISM. 

terms  which  we  are  compelled  to  use  in  speaking 
of  it,  after  the  least  theological  fashion,  imply  so 
much.  That  so  it  is  by  any  mere  accident,  is  alto- 
gether inconceivable.  The  enormous  agencies  con- 
cerned in  the  elevation  of  the  granite — could  we 
have  seen  them  operating — might  have  seemed 
merely  blind  and  lawless  ;  but  the  result  is  order, 
and  we  can  not  help  concluding  that  some  presid- 
ing mind  has  been  at  work.  The  granite  has  been 
upheaved,  it  may  be,  by  convulsive  agencies  of  a 
magnitude  and  intensity  far  beyond  any  of  which 
we  have  now  experience  ;  the  superimposed  strata 
have  been  rent,  and  tossed  hither  and  thither.  The 
vast  process  by  which  this  was  accomplished  might 
have  seemed  mere  wild  confusion.  But  pierce  and 
bore  the  earth  in  all  directions,  there  is  really  noth- 
ing like  confusion.  The  term  is  indeed  unknown 
to  science,  and  to  no  science  more  than  to  geology, 
immense  and  catastrophic,  according  to  the  most 
common  opinion,  as  are  the  changes  with  which  it 
has  to  do.  Let  the  granite,  for  example,  rise  to 
whatever  heights — let  it  tower  in  whatever  alpine 
magnitudes — we  never  find  that  its  proper,  or  what 
we  might  call  its  constitutional  position,  is  altered : 
the  foundations  are  still  granite,  if  the  granitic  mass 
yet  stretch  in  cleaving  branches  through  the  sedi- 
mentary strata,  and  far  overreach  their  roof. 

And  even  so  of  all  the  different  strata  over  the 
diversified  surface  of  the  earth ;  they  all  of  them 


lie, 

r>lin 


STRUCTURE    OF    THE     EARTH.        127 


ie,  as  we  have  mentioned,  severally  exposed — 
characterizing,  in  their  distribution,  different  coun- 
tries and  localities.  The  old  red  sandstone  and 
carboniferous  systems  of  the  pala3ozoic  era,  for  in- 
stance, form  the  immediate  platform  of  large  tracts 
of  our  island.  The  oolitic  sj^stem  of  the  reptilean 
era  marks  its  eastern  seaboard,  while  the  chalk  ex- 
tends on  the  south  and  southeast.  The  whole 
economy  of  the  terrene  architecture  is  thus  laid 
bare.  It  is  spread  out  for  our  inspection;  but, 
while  all  the  various  depositions  thus  appear  on 
the  surface,  there  is  no  confusion  in  their  relative 
positions.  They  are  never  found  at  random — one 
set  of  strata  being  now  below  and  then  above  an- 
other set — but  always  occupying  the  same  relation 
to  one  another.  If  we  find,  for  example,  the  lower 
Silurian  formation  exposed  in  Wales,  it  is  every 
where  found  to  rest  directly  on  the  granite ;  if  we 
find  the  old  red  sandstone  in  Devonshire,  it  again 
rests  on  the  silurian,  and  the  carboniferous  system 
again  on  it.  We  never  find  the  silurian  imposed 
on  the  old  red  sandstone,  nor  the  chalk  below  the 
oolitic.  A  set  structure  is  surely  here  in  the  clear- 
est manner  discernible.  We  can  not  well  conceive 
any  higher  idea  of  structure  than  just  such  a  special 
distribution  of  parts — the  parts  of  the  same  charac- 
ter being  always  found  in  the  same  place,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  others. 

The  order,  indeed,  which  the  mass  of  our  earth 


128  T  H  E  ISM. 

discovers,  is  on  a  vast  and  comprehensive  scale, 
which  may  not  very  readily  fall  in  with  our  pre- 
conceptions or  fancies.  Man's  feebleness  is  apt 
every  where  not  merely  to  limit,  but  to  spoil  his 
judgments,  so  that  order  is  perhaps  more  easily 
seen  by  him  in  mere  neatness  and  formality,  than 
in  the  bursting  and  glorious  fullness  of  Nature's 
own  form.  Could  the  crust  of  our  earth,  for  ex- 
ample, have  preserved  that  appearance  of  uniform 
regularity  which  would  have  followed  from  the 
continuance  of  the  sedimentary  strata  in  the  suc- 
cessive positions  of  the  order  of  their  formation — 
had  it  been  a  granite  nucleus  surrounded,  in  the 
words  of  Dr.  Buckland,  "by  entire  concentric  cov- 
erings of  stratified  rocks  like  the  coats  of  an  onion," 
and  could  we  have  been  cognizant  of  this  regu- 
larity, it  might,  we  dare  say,  have  impressed  many 
more  than  the  actual  structural  appearance  which 
it  presents.  The  order  in  the  one  case  might  have 
seemed  more  direct  and  apparent  than  in  the  other. 
But  as  it  is,  it  is  undoubtedly  a  far  more  glorious 
order — the  product  of  a  boundlessly  comprehen- 
sive Plasticity,  molding  the  most  mighty  and 
apparently  lawless  agencies  to  the  most  magnifi- 
cent, yet  most  exquisite  results,  and  the  more  per- 
fect just  as  it  may  transcend  our  feebleness  and 
awaken  our  wonder. 

Apart  from  the  disruptive  movements  of  which 
our  earth  has  been  the  scene,  it  would  not  have 


. 


STRUCT  U  K  E    OF    THE    EARTH.         129 


presented  any  of  its  characteristic  and  beautiful 
variety  of  hill  and  valley,  of  glen  and  stream.  Its 
surface  would  have  been  a  mere  uniform  level, 
without  life  or  picturesqueness  ;  its  rivers  mere 
sluggish  canals  ;  its  whole  aspect  destitute  of  that 
interchangeable  sweetness  and  grandeur,  softer  love- 
liness and  rugged  magnificence,  which  now  makes  it 
so  glorious  a  mirror  of  Power  and  Wisdom  ar  L 
Goodness.  To  the  same  causes  obviously  does  , ' 
also  owe  its  peculiar  fitness  as  the  abode  of  humar 
life.  For  otherwise  the  metals,  without  sony 
knowledge  of  which  man  has  never  been  able-  to 
rise  above  barbarism,  would  have  been  forever 
concealed  in  their  native  crypts.  Coal  would  have 
been  sunk  at  an  impenetrable  depth,  which  no  eye 
could  have  seen,  and  no  skill  have  reached.  And 
where,  again,  would  have  been  our  oceans,  with  no 
vast  hollows  to  repose  in  ?  But  it  is  needless,  and 
even  absurd,  to  make  such  suppositions.  We  have 
only  done  so  for  a  moment,  in  order  to  make  it 
clear  how  the  mighty  agencies  which  have  been 
concerned  in  the  present  structure  of  the  globe, 
wild  and  convulsive  as  they  may  have  been,  have 
been  directed  by  the  most  far-reaching  foresight  to 
purposes  of  human  improvement  and  happiness. 
They  were  only  the  tools  in  the  Divine  hand  for 
the  construction  of  man's  abode.  Far  from  being, 
in  any  sense,  interferences  with  the  terrene  archi- 
tecture, they  were  the  very  means  by  which  it  has 
6* 


130  THEISM 

been  built  up  into  the  special  order,  at  once  most 
beautiful  and  most  appropriate  for  him. 

In  contemplating  the  great  movements  which 
geology  reveals,  it  is  important  to  observe  further 
how  completely  dependent  they  appear.  In  those 
disruptive  agencies,  as  well  as  in  the  various  at- 
mospheric, aqueous,  and  organic  influences,  under 
the  operation  of  which  the  earth  has  assumed  its 
present  structure,  it  seems  impossible  that  any  one 
could  for  a  moment  find  the  ultimate  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  presented.  If  there  are  minds 
content  to  linger  among  the  ultimate  harmonies  of 
astronomy,  which  stand  forth  so  palpably  to  the 
intellectual  view,  we  can  not  yet  imagine  any  abid- 
ing by  the  final  agencies  of  geology,  as  if  they 
carried  with  them  any  self-sustaining  or  efficient 
energy.  They  appear  in  the  highest  degree  to  be 
simply  instrumental — the  merely  blind  agencies 
of  a  creative  and  designing  Mind. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  III. 

COSMICAL  AND  TERRESTRIAL  MAGNITUDES — DIVINE 
POWER. 

IN  the  two  previous  chapters  we  have  dwelt 
mainly  on  the  celestial  and  terrestrial  structures,  as 
evincing  an  intelligent  First  Cause.  It  is  order, 
as  such,  we  have  been  contemplating.  We  have 
glanced  but  slightly  at  the  peculiar  evidence  which 
the  phenomena  both  of  astronomy  and  geology 
furnish  of  immense  power  concerned  in  their  crea- 
tion and  maintenance.  So  striking  and  impressive, 
however,  is  this  evidence,  that  it  seems  right  to 
devote  a  brief  chapter  to  its  statement.  The 
phenomena  in  question  bring  before  us,  more  sig- 
nally than  any  other,  an  all-powerful  as  well  as 
wise  Being. 

It  is  of  course  obvious,  according  to  our  whole 
plan  of  treatment,  that  we  do  not  present  this 
illustrative  evidence  as  a  logical  proof  of  the  Divine 
omnipotence.  "We  do  not  profess  to  find  the  infi- 
nite in  the  mere  bewildering  magnitude  and  dura- 


132  THEISM. 

tion  of  the  finite.  This  was  indicated  already 
in  our  introductory  remarks.  Yet  it  deserves  to 
be  noticed,  that  the  only  conceivable  way  in  which 
the  infinite  could  be  exhibited  and  impressively 
set  forth  to  finite  beings,  is  by  such  an  array  of 
phenomena  as  the  sciences  of  astronomy  and 
geology  unfold  to  us — namely,  by  an  accumulated 
display  of  vast  magnitudes  and  apparently  inter- 
minable durations.  If  we  do  not  amid  such  views 
logically  reach  the  infinite,  we  are  yet  carried  on- 
ward to  it,  on  the  wings  of  an  imagination  which 
in  vain  essays  to  grasp  the  immensity  of  the  fields 
of  contemplation  open  to  it. 

The  simple  extent  of  the  celestial  space,  briefly 
exhibited  in  our  first  chapter,  is  well  calculated  to 
fill  our  minds  with  vast  ideas  of  Divine  power. 
Looking  out  from  beyond  our  earth,  the  sphere  of 
observation  extends  immeasurably  on  all  sides. 
Inexhaustible  to  the  naked  ej^e,  it  is  equally  inex- 
haustible when,  by  the  aid  of  the  telescope,  we 
are  carried  into  regions  so  inconceivably  remote- 
that  the  mind  sinks  utterly  overwhelmed  by  the 
spectacle.  Neptune  circles  round  the  sun  at  a  dis- 
tance of  nearly  three  thousand  millions  of  miles; 
the  nearest  fixed  star  («  Centauri)  is  seven  hundred 
times  farther  removed ;  while  the  bright  Dog-star, 
according  to  the  parallax  given  to  it  by  Professor 
Henderson,  is  almost  four  times  farther  off  than  « 
Centauri,  or  about  eighty  billions  of  miles  1  These 


DIVINE    P  O  W  E  K  .  133 

distances,  however,  inconceivable  as  they  are,  are 
nothing  to  those  of  the  nebulous  clusters  which 
people  the  more  inaccessible  tracts  of  space,  whose 
light,  it  is  stated,  can  only  reach  us  in  thousands 
and  even  millions  of  years.*  There  is,  in  short, 
no  limit  to  creation.  In  the  expanse  of  cosmical 
phenomena  we  have  assuredly,  therefore,  the  only 
visible  type  of  the  infinite  that  it  was  possible  for 
us  to  possess. 

If  from  the  mere  boundless  expanse  of  the  cos- 
mical regions  we  turn  to  contemplate  some  of  the 
special  magnitudes  and  velocities  with  which  they 
make  us  familiar,  the  attribute  of  power  will  per- 
haps display  itself  even  more  strikingly.  Let  the 
mass  of  our  earth,  possessing  a  diameter  of  about 
eight  thousand  miles,  and  of  which  we  may  be 
supposed  to  have  some  not  indistinct  conception, 
be  taken  as  our  starting-point.  Enormous  as  it  is, 
it  dwindles  into  a  mere  point  among  the  stellar 
magnitudes,  and  becomes  even  small  beside  its 
planetary  companions.  Jupiter  is  fourteen  hun- 
dred times  larger,  and  Saturn  nearly  the  same 
size,  encircled  by  a  gorgeous  envelop  or  ring 
which,  it  has  been  said,  would  enclose  five  hun- 
dred worlds  as  large  as  ours.f  The  mass  of  the 
sun  itself  is  three  hundred  and  fifty -four  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  thirty -six  times  that  of  the 

*  Sir  J.  HERSCHEL'S  Astronomy,  §  590. 
f  DICK'S  Celestial  Scenery  p  274. 


134  THEISM. 

earth.  It  would  not  only  fill  up  the  orbit  of  the 
moon,  but  would  extend  nearly  as  far  again.  But 
this  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  mass  of  some 
of  the  stars.  Who  can  conjecture  the  magnitude 
of  a  body  which  would  fill  the  vast  orbit  of  the 
earth  ?  But  the  bright  star  in  Lyra  has  a  diameter 
which,  it  has  been  said,  would  fill  even  that  orbit.* 
And  among  the  nebulous  stars  some  are  supposed 
to  be  of  even  greater  dimensions. 

Let  us  think,  then,  of  the  force  concerned  in  the 
movements  of  such  enormous  masses.  A  cannon- 
ball  projected  from  the  mouth  of  a  gun  moves  at 
the  rate  of  about  a  thousand  miles  an  hour,  which 
is  the  rate  of  the  diurnal  motion  of  the  earth  at  the 
equator;  but  the  velocity  of  the  earth's  motion 
round  the  sun  is  sixty -five  times  faster  than  this. 
"Jupiter,  equal  in  weight  to  fourteen  hundred 
earths,  moves  with  a  velocity  of  twenty -nine  thou- 
sand miles  an  hour.  The  rate  of  Mercury  is  one 
hundred  and  seven  thousand  miles  an  hour.  The 
velocity  of  the  comet  of  1680  is  estimated  at  eight 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  miles  an  hour."f 
The  annual  motion  of  one  of  the  (fixed!)  stars, 
sixty -one  Cygni,  has  been  computed  at  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  millions  of  millions  of  miles. 
How  mighty  and  transcending  is  the  power  dis- 
played in  these  celestial  masses  and  movements  I 
It  is  certainly  quite  impossible  that  the  conception 

*  HARRIS'S  Prc-Adamite  Earth,  p.  145.       f  Ibid,  p.  148. 


DIVINE    POWER.  135 

of  an  all-powerful  Being  could  have  been  more 
impressively  set  forth  to  the  human  mind.  For 
whatever  limit  is  at  length  reached  in  such  con- 
templations does  not  arise  from  the  exhaustion  of 
evidence,  but  from  the  feebleness  of  our  mental 
capacity  to  grasp  the  phenomena  presented  to  it. 

The  vast  periods  of  geology,  and  the  immense 
forces  that  must  have  operated  in  the  formation  of 
the  earth,  are  eminently  calculated  to  give  us  the 
same  impression  of  an  eternal  and  omnipotent  Be- 
ing. The  data  with  which  the  science  of  geology 
furnishes  us,  are  not,  indeed,  so  indisputable  as 
those  furnished  by  astronomy.  For  while  there 
are  some  who  estimate  the  geological  cycles  by 
millions  of  years,  there  are  others  who  strive  to 
bring  them  within  much  narrower  bounds  ;  while 
there  are  some  who  recognize  the  agency  of  ele- 
mental forces  in  the  past  career  of  the  earth,  of  a 
magnitude  of  which  we  have  now  no  experience, 
there  are  others  who  contend  for  a  uniformity  of 
those  agencies  with  those  presently  existing.  The 
character  of  the  agencies  employed,  it  is  clear,  must 
be  estimated  according  to  the  different  reckoning 
of  the  periods  allotted  to  the  work.  On  any  spe- 
cial geological  hypothesis,  however,  the  data  are 
sufficiently  significant  for  our  purpose.  According 
to  any  admissible  estimate,  we  find  ourselves,  in 
tracing  back  the  progress  of  the  earth's  formation, 
contemplating,  not  a  succession  of  days  and  years, 


136  THEISM. 

but  of  ages  and  cycles  of  ages.  The  epochs  that 
must  have  elapsed  since  the  first  great  stones  of 
the  terrene  structure  were  laid,  and  while  terrace 
after  terrace  was  added  to  it,  carry  us  back  into 
the  night  of  time,  far  beyond  the  most  fabulous 
computations  of  History.  We  ascend  into  the 
past  by  steps  that  weary  our  imagination  to  keep 
in  view. 

Again,  the  power  concerned  in  the  production 
of  the  vast  effects  which  we  see  around  us  would 
seem  to  "be  equally  indubitable,  whether  we  assume 
them  to  have  been  brought  about  by  suddenly  vio- 
lent or  by  gradual  action.  On  any  tenable  suppo- 
sition as  to  the  mode  of  the  elevation  of  the  Alps 
and  the  Andes  to  their  present  heights,  we  must 
surely  recognize  in  such  phenomena  the  agency 
of  a  Power,  before  which  we  can  only  bow  in 
dumb  and  lowly  reverence.  Here,  surely,  we  be- 
hold the  doing  of  the  Almighty — of  Him  before 
whom  "  the  nations  are  as  a  drop  of  the  bucket," 
and  who  "  taketh  up  th'e  isles  as  a  very  little 
thing." 


§  II— CHAPTER.    IV. 

ELEMENTARY  COMBINATIONS — CRYSTALLIZATION 

BENEATH  the  architectural  structure  of  the  earth, 
there  is  an  interior  elementary  structure  of  great 
interest  and  significance.  The  stones  of  the  build- 
ing are  not  merely  disposed  in  an  orderly  and 
fitting  manner,  but  in  the  composition  of  the 
stones  themselves  there  is  found  an  order  of  the 
most  exquisite  kind.  The  separate  masses  of  mat- 
ter are  not  only  arranged ;  but  matter  itself,  with 
which  we  have  been  hitherto  only  dealing  in 
masses,  presents  a  constitution  of  the  most  exact 
and  definite  character,  highly  illustrative  of  the 
Divine  wisdom.  As  geology  makes  us  familiar 
with  the  mechanical,  or,  as  we  have  termed  it, 
architectural  structure  of  the  earth,  chemistry  un- 
folds its  elementary  constitution. 

Chemists  reckon  at  present  upward  of  sixty  ele- 
mentary substances.  This,  however,  is  a  merely 
provisional  reckoning,  liable  any  day  to  alteration. 
A  hitherto  hidden  bond  of  identity  may  yet  be 


138  THEISM. 

discovered  between  many  substances  which  now 
obstinately  resist  identification.  It  is  found,  in 
fact,  that  only  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
these  substances  enter,  to  any  large  and  pervading 
extent,  into  the  constitution  of  nature — viz.,  oxy- 
gen, hydrogen,  nitrogen,  carbon,  and,  among  the 
metals,  silicium  and  aluminium.  Oxygen  is  con- 
sidered by  far  the  most  abundant  substance  in*the 
earth.  United  with  hydrogen,  it  constitutes  water ; 
with  nitrogen,  and  a  comparatively  small  propor- 
tion of  carbon,  it  makes  common  air;  while  it 
enters,  at  the  same  time,  largely  into  every  kind 
of  rock  in  the  crust  of  the  earth.  Carbon,  again, 
is  the  main  constituent  of  all  vegetable  and  animal 
matters ;  and  silicium,  in  nearly  equal  combina- 
tions with  oxygen  (making  silica),  is  said  to  form 
the  basis  of  about  half  of  the  rocks  of  the  earth. 

There  appears  to  us  to  be  something  profoundly 
impressive  in  the  contemplation  of  the  few  simple 
substances  to  which  we  can  thus  trace  back  all  the 
multiform  diversity  6f  nature.  How  marvelous 
to  reflect  that  the  solid  earth,  the  compact  rocks, 
the  limpid  stream,  and  the  clear  atmosphere,  the 
fields  clothed  with  grass,  and  the  valleys  covered 
over  with  corn,  are  only  the  varied  combinations  of 
a  few  elementary  ingredients !  So  plastic  is  Nature ! 
Science  strips  off  the  glorious  forms  in  which  she 
is  every  where  robed,  and  brings  us  into  her  secret 
laboratories.  But  surely  this  does  not  diminish, 


CRYSTALLIZATION.  139 


but  only  heightens,  the  impression  of  wonderful 
intelligence  which  she  .every  where  reveals.  So 
exquisite  did  nature's  forms  seem  to  the  Grecian 
mind,  that  a  Divine  Presence  seemed  to  speak  from 
all  of  them.  Beside  the  beautiful  there  every 
where  arose  the  spiritual.  The  Oread,  the  Dryad, 
and  the  Nereid,  were  the  graceful  embodiments  of 
the  plastic  Life,  that  seemed  thus  to  animate  the 
mountain,  the  forest,  and  the  ocean ;  and,  surely, 
intelligence  is  not  less  but  more  visible,  that  science 
shows  us  the  few  ingredients  which,  in  different 
combinations,  produce  these  diverse  phenomena  of 
nature.  Although  the  mystery  has  been  so  far 
un vailed,  and  we  can  look  far  beyond  the  simple- 
hearted  view  of  Paganism,  yet  we  can  not  get  rid 
of  the  truth  to  which  it  dimly  testified.  We  find 
ourselves  among  the  last  analyses  of  nature's  pro- 
cesses, more  impressively  than  ever  in  the  presence 
of  a  living  and  presiding  Intelligence. 

This  is  in  the  highest  degree  evident,  when  we 
contemplate  the  special  character  of  those  element- 
ary combinations  with  which  chemistry  makes  us 
acquainted :  for  it  is  ascertained,  not  merely  that 
all  the  great  features  and  products  of  nature  are 
compounded  of  a  comparatively  few  elementary 
ingredients,  but  that  these  ingredients  every  where 
combine  only  in  certain  definite  and  unvarying 
proportions.  They  obey  laws  of  the  greatest  sim- 
plicity and  exastness,  u  which  never  change,  and 


140  T  H  E  I  S  M  . 

which  govern  the  formation  of  compounds  of  all 
classes  and  descriptions."*  Thus,  "  water,  however 
produced,  always  consists  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen, 
in  the  proportion  of  8  parts  of  the  former  to  1  of 
the  latter  by  weight.  Chalk,  whether  formed  by 
nature  or  by  the  chemist,  yields  43.71  parts  of 
carbonic  acid,  and  56.29  parts  of  lime.  The  rust 
which  forms  upon  the  surface  of  iron  by  the  action 
of  the  atmosphere,  is  as  invariable  in  its  composi- 
tion as  if  it  had  been  formed  by  the  most  delicate 
adjustment  of  weight,  by  the  most  accurate  mani- 
pulator, being  28  parts  of  iron,  and  12  parts  of 
oxygen.  This  law  is  the  basis  of  all  chemical  in- 
quiry.'^ 

Where,  again,  the  same  elements  unite,  as  they 
often  do,  to  form  different  bodies,  such  combina- 
tions are  always  related  as  multiples.  Thus,  in 
the  different  compounds  of  nitrogen  with  oxygen, 
we  find  that  with  the  same  proportion  of  the  former 
the  latter  unites  only  in  the  successive  ratios  of  8, 
16,  24,  32,  and  40.  "  There  are  no  intermediate 
compounds  whatever.  And  this  law  is  perfectly 
general ;  whenever  bodies  combine  in  more  than 
one  proportion,  a  relation  of  this  kind  between  the 
quantities  concerned  can  be  observed.  It  applies 
alike  to  elementary  substances,  and  to  compounds 
formed  by  the  union  of  bodies  themselves  com- 

*  FOWNES'  Chemistry,  p.  39. 

f  HUNT'S  Poetry  of  Science,  p.  253. 


; 


CRYSTALLIZATION.  i41 


pound."*  There  may  be  an  interruption  in  the 
series  of  numbers,  or  the  relation  of  the  numbers 
may  not  be  quite  so  simple  as  in  the  case  men- 
tioned, but  an  exact  numerical  relation  is  found  to 
underlie  all  compounds.  So,  in  the  gaseous  state, 
bodies  only  unite  according  to  exact  measures  or 
volumes,  depending  upon  the  wonderful  connec- 
tion between  the  specific  weight  of  a  gas  or  vapor 
and  its  volume.  The  volumes  are  always  equal,  or 
multiples  the  one  of  the  other,  and  any  extra 
quantity  that  may  be  present  is  sure  to  be  left  over 
when  combination  ensues. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  any  thing  more  grand 
and  simple  than  the  mode  in  which  the  infinitely 
varied  processes  of  nature  are  thus  carried  on.  By 
merely  multiplying  the  proportion  of  one  of  the 
ingredients,  the  most  diverse  substances  are  pro- 
duced from  the  same  elements.  Thus,  in  the  case 
mentioned  by  us,  and  so  often  instanced  for  its  im- 
pressive simplicity — the  combinations  of  oxygen 
with  nitrogen — the  several  compounds  are  well 
known  to  possess  the  most  different  qualities — a 
definite  increment  of  one  of  the  ingredients  making 
all  the  difference  between  a  virulently  noxious 
poison  and  the  breath  of  man's  life.  What  an  un- 
erring providence  and  skill  does  this  evince  in  the 
continual  assortment  of  nature's  elementary  pro- 
ducts !  What  power,  save  an  almighty  one,  could, 

*  FOWNES'  Chemistry,  p.  41. 


142  THEISM. 

from  the  mere  varying  composition  of  the  same  few 
elements,  produce  all  this  wonderful  diversity  of 
result?  What  intelligence,  save  an  infinite  one, 
could  order  and  preserve  with  such  a  nice  adjust- 
ment the  infinitely  multiplied  combinations  so  as 
not  to  interfere  with  animal  life  and  happiness? 
What  striking  and  beautiful  alliances,  moreover, 
thus  pervade  nature !  Things  apparently  the  most 
opposite  are  yet  radically  akin.  The  pleasant  nu- 
triment and  the  noxious  poison  are  of  the  same 
parentage ;  the  rude  lump  of  charcoal  and  the  glit- 
tering diamond  are  the  same  substance.  Matter  is 
truly  kindred  in  all  its  forms ;  nature  a  vast  broth- 
erhood, confessing  to  the  same  Maker  and  the  same 
Preserver. 

But  what  perhaps  especially  claims  our  notice  is, 
the  numerical  exactitude  thus  found  to  lie  at  the 
root  of  nature.  In  breaking  up  its  rounded  and 
beautiful  forms,  they  are  found  to  rest  on  the  most 
strictly  arithmetical  basis.  It  is  seen  to  be  the 
most  literal  scientific  truth  that  the  "mountains  are 
weighed  in  scales  and  the  hills  in  a  balance."  As 
in  the  mighty  movements  of  the  heavens  we  are 
dealing  with  the  most  rigorous  measurements ;  so, 
in  the  minute  and  hidden  movements  of  matter, 
the  great  discovery  of  Dalton  shows  us  to  be 
equally  dealing  with  such  measurements.  Whether 
or  not  we  are  justified  in  concluding  all  that  the 
atomic  theory  demands,  the  law  of  definite  and 


CRYSTALLIZATION.  143 


multiple  proportions  which  it  serves  to  express  re- 
mains indubitable ;  and  in  contemplating  the  con- 
stitution of  matter,  this  leaves  us,  in  the  last  resort, 
face  to  face  with  numerical  order. 

Whence,  then,  this  order?  Science  has  disclos- 
ed its  character ;  what  has  it  to  say  as  to  its  explan- 
ation? It  has  expressed,  under  the  name  of 
chemical  affinity,  all  that  it  has  to  say  on  this  sub- 
ject. Elementary  combinations  take  place  under 
the  influence  of  an  elective  force,  so  described  with 
reference  to  the  special  dispositions  to  union  mani- 
fested by  all  ultimate  particles.  It  is  under  the  op- 
eration of  this  so-called  force  that  the  constant 
interchange  and  balance  of  nature's  ingredients  are 
alone  preserved,  and  that  its  existing  forms  are 
maintained  with  such  nice  and  unvarying  discrimi- 
nation. As  we  have,  in  the  wide  region  of  space, 
gravitation  uniting  all  bodies,  and  drawing  them 
to  common  centres,  so  we  have  the  attraction  of  co- 
hesion holding  the  masses  of  the  different  bodies 
together;  and  finally,  chemical  or  elective  attrac- 
tion, serving  by  its  occult  power  to  give  determi- 
nate character  or  form  to  every  kind  of  material 
creation.*  But,  after  all,  science  merely  conceals 
its  ignorance  by  such  general  expressions.  The 
laws  in  question  are  simply  the  last  reductions  of 
its  persevering  research  ;  and  so  far  from  their  fur- 
nishing any  adequate  explanation  of  the  phenome- 

*  HUNT'S  Poetry  of  Science,  p.  2fi2. 


144  THEISM. 

na,  they  imperatively  claim  themselves  to  bo 
explained.  It  is  only,  according  to  our  whole  ar- 
gument, when  we  recognize  in  these  general  laws 
the  operative  modes  of  a  Supreme  Intelligence,  that 
we  reach  a  satisfactory  meaning  in  nature,  or  an 
adequate  explanation  of  its  order. 

There  is  a  further  order  of  inorganic  matter  pe- 
culiarly mathematical  in  its  character,  and  well  de- 
serving our  attention  before  proceeding  to  higher 
illustrations  of  our  subject — that,  namely,  which  is 
expressed  in  the  beautiful  and  well-known  phe- 
nomena of  crystallization.  If,  among  the  last 
results  of  chemistry,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  region 
of  numbers,  we  here  become  conversant  with  the 
exact  forms  of  geometry.  Stones  and  minerals  we 
are  familiarly  apt  to  regard  as  not  possessing  any 
definite  shape  and  structure — an  idea  which  lies 
with  somewhat  vitiating  force  at  the  bottom  of 
Paley's  famous  comparison  of  the  stone  found  upon 
the  heath,  and  the  watch.  In  fact,  however,  there 
are  few  things  so  exactly  defined  as  simple  miner- 
als ;  and  this  not  only  in  their  external  figure,  but 
peculiarly  in  their  interior  and  most  hidden  struc- 
ture. Crystallization,  which  is  the  ordinary  state 
in  which  a  great  number  of  the  substances  of  the 
Dearth  are  found,  in  nothing  else  than  a  regular 
geometrical  form,  accompanied  by  and  dependent 
upon  a  regular  structure.  It  has  been  well  describ- 
ed to  be  a  "  peculiar  and  most  admirable  work  of 


CRYSTALLIZATION.  145 

nature's  geometry  ;"  and  so  minutely  and  elaborate- 
ly has  nature  wrought  her  geometrical  patterns, 
that  they  are  found  to  reappear  after  the  most  mi- 
nute subdivision.  Beneath  the  fixed  variety  of 
external  or  secondary  forms  which  crystalline 
bodies  assume,  there  is  an  ultimate  or  primitive 
form  retained  by  the  smallest  particles  of  each  crys- 
tal. Thus,  to  employ  the  illustration  of  Dr.  Buck- 
land,  "  We  have  more  than  five  hundred  branches 
of  secondary  forms  presented  by  the  crystals  of  the 
well-known  substance  of  carbonate  of  lime.  In 
each  of  these  we  trace  a  fivefold  series  of  subordi- 
nate relations  of  one  system  of  combinations  to' 
another  system,  under  which  every  individual  crys- 
tal has  been  adjusted  by  laws  acting  correlatively 
to  produce  harmonious  results."  Again,  he  adds, 
"  Every  crystal  of  carbonate  of  lime  is  made  up  of 
millions  of  particles  of  the  same  compound  sub- 
stances having  one  invariable  primary  form — viz., 
that  of  a  rhomboidal  solid,  which  may  be  obtained 
to  an  indefinite  extent  by  mechanical  division."* 
Some,  as  Professor  Moh,  reckon  four,  and  others 
six,  of  these  primitive  crystalline  forms. 

It  is  needless  for  us  to  dwell  upon  the  abundant 
theistic  meaning  which  such  phenomena  present. 
The  only  conception  which  we  can  have  of  crys- 
tallization, the  definition  by  which  alone  we  can 
express  it,  indicates,  in  the  clearest  manner,  the 

*  BUCKLAND'S  Bridgewater  Treatise,  pp.  576,  577. 

7 


146  THEISM. 

working  of  intelligence.  The  geometric  stamp  is 
impressed  on  the  minutest  particle.  The  die  is  in- 
wrought beyond  the  furthest  process  of  cleavage 
or  mere  mechanical  division.  Shiver  the  crystal- 
line mass  as  we  may,  the  figure  still  lives.  Where 
form  is  so  deeply  and  curiously  impressed,  we  must 
surely  recognize  a  Former.  Nature's  "  admirable 
geometry"  irresistibly  points  to  nature's  great  Ge- 
ometer. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  Y. 

ORGAN  I  ZAT  ION — DESIGN. 

WE  have  been  hitherto  tarrying  amid  the  com- 
paratively simple  and  general  phenomena  of  inor- 
ganic matter.  By  degrees  we  have  advanced  from 
the  most  simple  and  comprehensive  to  the  more 
special  and  definite  laws  which  mark  the  inorganic 
world.  "We  have  contemplated  the  vast  and  beau- 
tiful cosmical  order  subserved  by  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation, and  the  general  laws  of  motion  ;  the  struc- 
ture of  the  earth  in  its  apparently  irregular,  yet 
most  orderly  flights  of  architecture — the  constitu- 
tion of  matter,  revealing  relations  so  exact,  and  a 
higher  and  more  refined  law  of  kindred  or  elective 
attraction.  "We  have  further  observed  the  regular 
geometrical  forms  exhibited  in  crystallization — no 
longer  merely  chemical  compositions,  but  symmet- 
rical arrangement.  Our  illustrations  have  been 
thus  of  a  progressive  character.  Material  order  has 
been  contemplated  in  an  ascending  series  of  com- 


148  THEISM. 

plexity,  from  the  ruder  form  of  mere  mechanical 
adjustment,  to  the  higher  forms  of  chemical  affinity 
and  geometric  adaptations. 

Crystallization  is  the  most  perfect  form  assumed 
by  inorganic  matter.  It  is  the  highest  order  we 
reach  among  inorganic  phenomena.  There  are, 
however,  far  higher,  or  at  least  more  complex  and 
impressive,  modes  of  order  presented  to  us  in  the 
material  world,  and  bearing,  therefore,  as  they  have 
been  always  supposed  to  bear,  with  a  special  force 
upon  the  illustration  of  our  subject. 

Clearly  marked  as  is  the  highest  kind  of  inor- 
ganic order  which  we  have  considered,  it  is  yet,  so 
to  speak,  a  mere  outward  order,  proceeding  from 
external  junction  of  parts.  It  is  the  result  of  force 
from  without,  and  dependent  upon  the  direction 
and  degree  of  the  compulsory  application.  On 
the  first  view  of  organic  phenomena,  we  are  struck 
with  their  essential  difference  in  this  respect.  We 
contemplate  no  longer  merely  a  combination  of 
outward  relations,  but  a  product  of  inward  forces. 
The  material  object  is  no  longer  merely,  as  even  in 
the  case  of  the  crystal,  the  result  of  aggregation, 
of  the  external  juxtaposition  of  particles  ;  it  is  a  liv- 
ing production  forming  itself  from  within.  A  new 
power  is  seen  stirring  in  matter — a  power  not  only 
of  selection  or  of  adaptation,  but  of  assimilation, 
and,  moreover,  of  reproduction.  Inorganic  matter, 
it  has  been  well  said,  "only  finds,  organic  makes, 


ORGANIZATION  —  DESIGN.  Ii9 

what  is  added  to  its  structure ;  recasting  the  inert 
substance,  and  exhibiting  it  in  new  unions,  not  of 
binary  merely,  but  of  ternary  and  quaternary  com- 
binations. The  inorganic  changes  that  on  which 
it  acts  chemically;  the  organic  vitalizes,  and  im- 
parts to  the  matter  which  it  vitalizes  the  power  of 
acting  in  the  same  way  on  other  substances.  This 
is  the  end  and  object  of  that  series  of  functions 
which,  beginning  with  absorption,  conveys  the  ab- 
sorbed matter  through  the  stem  into  the  leaves, 
then  subjects  it  to  a  process  of  exhalation,  submits 
the  rest  to  the  action  of  the  atmosphere,  conveys 
it  back  into  the  system,  elaborates  it  by  secretion, 
and  ends  in  assimilation.  The  plant  is  also  genera- 
tive. The  inorganic  mass  can  only  increase  by 
cohesion,  by  agglomeration  from  without.  But 
the  plant  *  hath  its  seed  in  itself.'  It  exists  in  gen- 
erations. Besides  vitalizing  that  which  is  necessary 
to  the  conservation  of  each  of  its  own  parts,  it  is 
endowed  with  the  power  of  giving  existence  to  a 
new  whole,  and  of  providing  the  germ  with  the 
nourishment  necessary  for  it,  in  order  to  commence 
its  independent  being."* 

These  two  attributes  of  assimilation  and  repro- 
duction mark  off  and  determine  organic  matter,  in 
its  lowest  forms,  from  inorganic.  They  are  the 
distinctive  attributes  of  life  in  its  feeblest  develop- 
ments. Our  knowledge  of  life  begins  with  them ; 

*  HARRIS'S  Pre- Adamite  Earth,  p.  166. 


150  THEISM. 

and  beyond  such  manifestations  of  the  vital  ele- 
ment— unsearchable  in  its  hidden  depths — our 
knowledge  will  probably  never  reach.  Whenever 
matter  is  found  to  possess  these  properties,  in  con- 
tradistinction to  the  mere  properties  of  chemical 
attraction  or  crystallization,  it  is  said  to  be  organ- 
ized. If  we  inquire  more  particularly  for  a  defini- 
tion of  organization,  that  given  by  Kant  seems  to 
be  acknowledged  to  be  the  best.  "  An  organized 
product  of  nature,"  he  says,  "  is  that  in  which  all 
the  parts  are  mutually  means  and  ends."  It  is  not 
only,  it  will  be  observed,  the  idea  of  dependence 
among  the  parts  which  is  here  expressed;  this 
would  not  form  an  advance  beyond  the  formerly 
considered  phenomena  of  matter.  There  is  a 
beautifully  coherent  dependence  between  the  seve- 
ral particles  of  a  crystal.  But  the  definition  of 
Kant  expresses  further  an  adjustment  or  dependence 
between  all  the  different  parts  of  an  organized  body, 
so  as  to  subserve  the  definite  purpose  of  maintaining 
the  whole  body ;  and  not  only  so,  but  the  further  idea 
that  the  maintenance  of  the  whole  is  essential  to  the 
maintenance  of  any  of  the  parts.  It  expresses,  in 
short,  the  fact  of  a  constantly  subsisting  relation 
between  all  the  parts  on  which  the  subsistence  of 
the  whole  depends.  Such  an  interacting  relation 
does  not  exist  between  the  several  parts  of  an  in- 
organized  body.  We  can,  on  the  contrary,  break 
up  a  crystal,  as  we  have  seen,  even  indefinitely, 


ORGANIZATION  —  DESIGN.  151 


without  destroying  its  primitive  constitutive  form 
But  let  us  take  to  pieces  a  plant,  and,  destroying 
the  living  relation  between  the  parts,  we  destroy 
the  organism.  Organization,  in  its  simplest  appear- 
ance, presents,  therefore,  a  more  complex  and  delicate 
— so  to  speak — a  more  subtle  and  essential  species  of 
order  than  any  which  we  have  hitherto  contemplated. 

In  this  mere  fact  of  organization  furnishing  us 
with  a  further  and  more  refined  example  of  order, 
we  have  an  additional  illustrative  evidence  of  Di- 
vine intelligence.  We  recognize,  with  impressive 
force,  the  artist,  in  the  higher  specimen  of  art  be- 
fore us.  To  the  query,  Whence  ?  which  immedi- 
ately arises  here,  as  in  the  contemplation  of  all 
order,  we  are  carried,  in  answer,  irresistibly  back 
to  a  supremely  intelligent  Will. 

But  is  this  all  the  theistic  inference  impressed 
upon  us  in  the  contemplation  of  organic  phenome- 
na ?  Is  not  design  in  some  sense  peculiarly  pres- 
ent in  such  phenomena  ?  Physiology  has  been 
commonly  supposed  to  be  the  special  sphere  of  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes,  and  its  study  held  to  pos- 
sess a  special  interest  and  value  in  this  respect.  It 
will  be  well  to  set  clearly  before  the  reader  the  dis- 
tinctive relation  of  this  branch  of  the  illustrative 
evidence  to  that  presented  by  the  simple  phenomena 
of  inorganic  matter,  especially  as  this  relation  has 
not  always  been  apprehended  in  a  just  and  dis- 
criminating light. 


152  THEISM. 

First  of  all,  then,  it  seems  undoubted  that  the 
phenomena  of  organization  do  possess  a  certain 
peculiar  impressiveness  in  regard  to  the  theistic 
argument.  Merely  as  examples  of  a  higher  and 
more  curiously  related  order,  they  are,  to  many 
minds  at  least,  peculiarly  suggestive  of  creative  in- 
telligence. The  elaborate  texture  and  delicately- 
wrought  coloring  of  vegetable  forms,  or  again,  the 
manifold  and  complex  felicities  of  animal  struc- 
tures, may  be  conceived  more  vividly  pregnant 
with  the  idea  of  design,  of  wisdom  concerned  in 
the  result,  than  even  the  most  perfect  and  mathe- 
matically regular  combinations  of  inorganic  matter. 
In  this  view  Paley's  often-impugned  comparison — 
the  boldly-struck  key-note  of  his  delightful  work 
• — may  be  so  far  justified.  Taking  the  stone 
gathered  from  the  heath  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
watch  on  the  other,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
absolute  contrast  which  he  institutes  between  them 
is  not  to  be  defended.  The  stone  is  by  no  means 
destitute  of  those  marks  of  workmanship  which 
we  recognize  so  immediately  in  the  watch  ;  and  to 
the  inquiry,  "how  the  stone  came  to  be  there ?" 
these  marks  or  characters,  on  examination,  furnish 
an  answer  no  less  decided  than  the  special  adjust- 
ment of  the  several  parts  of  a  watch  does  as  to  its 
origin.  Supposing  the  stone  were  a  crystal,  we 
have  seen  how  skillfully  configured  is  such  an 
inorganic  product ;  supposing  it  only  a  rude  mass 


ORGANIZATION  —  DESIGN.  153 

of  sandstone,  without  symmetry  of  form  or  beauty 
of  luster,  it  yet  appears,  in  the  light  of  Dalton's 
great  discovery,  to  be  an  exquisitely-arranged  com- 
pound ;  and  its  special  composition,  whatever  that 
might  be,  would  be  full  of  reply  as  to  its  origin. 
Paley's  comparison,  therefore,  fails  when  pushed 
to  the  extent  which  he  has  implied ;  but,  when 
used  as  merely  serving  to  bring  before  the  popular 
mind  a  more  impressive  exhibition  of  design,  it  is 
sufficiently  valid.  A  watch,  with  its  complicated 
mechanism  of  wheels  and  pulleys  and  springs, 
causing  a  definite  motion  in  a  definite  time,  is  ap- 
parently the  result  of  greater  skill  than  any  mineral 
composition,  however  exact.  So  at. least  it  would 
doubtless  seem  to  most  minds.  In  the  same  way, 
any  flower  or  animal  structure  of  peculiar  delicacy 
and  utility  may  be  thought  to  speak  of  God  more 
plainly  than  even  the  most  beautiful  and  elaborate 
crystalline  structure. 

But  further  than  this — beyond  such  a  higher 
utility  in  the  way  of  popular  illustration — we  can 
not  admit  that  organic  phenomena  by  themselves 
exhibit  any  peculiar  theistic  meaning.  They  ex- 
press the  inference  of  design  more  conspicuously, 
but  this  is  all.  This,  we  imagine,  is  incapable  of 
being  disputed,  on  reflection.  At  the  same  time, 
it  appears  to  us  that  considerable  confusion  and 
inconsequence  of  thought  prevail  upon  this  subject 
even  among  some  of  our  highest  scientific  thinkers. 
7* 


154  THEISM. 

The  relation  of  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  in  its 
fundamental  theological  import,  to  the  special 
scientific  application  which  has  been  made  of  it  in 
physiology,  is  not  apprehended  with  sufficient 
clearness ;  and  a  certain  measure  of  doubt  has  been 
thus  allowed  to  rest  on  the  subject,  which  seems  to 
us  perverting,  and  even  fata],  in  reference  to  the 
general  principle.  Dr.  Whewell,  for  example,  has 
observed :  "  It  has  appeared  to  some  persons  that 
the  mere  aspect  of  order  and  symmetry  in  the 
works  of  nature — the  contemplation  of  compre- 
hensive and  consistent  law — is  sufficient  to  lead  us 
to  the  conception  of  a  design  and  intelligence  pro- 
ducing the  order  and  carrying  into  effect  the  law. 
"Without  here  attempting  to  decide  whether  this  is 
true,  we  may  discern,  after  what  has  been  said,  that 
the  conception  of  design  arrived  at  in  this  manner 
is  altogether  different  from  that  idea  of  design 
which  is  suggested  to  us  by  the  organized  bodies, 
and  which  we  describe  as  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes.  The  regular  form  of  a  crystal,  whatever 
beautiful  symmetry  it  may  exhibit,  whatever  gene- 
ral laws  it  may  exemplify,  does  not  prove  design 
in  the  same  manner  in  which  design  is  proved  by 
the  provisions  for  the  preservation  and  growth  of 
the  seeds  of  plants  and  of  the  young  of  animals. 
The  law  of  universal  gravitation,  however  wide 
and  simple,  does  not  impress  us  with  the  belief 
of  a  purpose,  as  does  that  propensity  bv  which 


ORGANIZATION  — DESIGN.  155 

the  two   sexes  of  each   animal   are  brought  to- 
gether."* 

There  is,  according  to  what  we  have  already  said, 
a  certain  measure  of  truth  in  this  passage.  The 
law  of  gravitation  does  not  impress  us  with  the 
belief  of  purpose  and  design  in  the  same  degree, 
perhaps,  as  does  that  "propensity  by  which  the 
two  sexes  of  each  animal  are  brought  together ;" 
but  surely  there  is  nothing  altogether  different  in 
the  idea  of  design  in  the  two  cases.  It  may  be, 
that  in  the  one  case  the  idea  presents  itself  to  our 
sensuous  observation  more  vividly,  and  is  there- 
fore entitled  to  guide  us  in  our  scientific  researches 
into  physiological  relations,  in  a  way  that  would 
be  apt  rather  to  mislead  than  assist  the  astronomer 
in  his  researches  among  the  heavenly  bodies. 
Design,  in  short,  may  not  be  with  the  astronomer, 
as  with  the  physiologist,  an  appropriate  principle  of 
discovery.  The  former  does  not  take  it  with  him 
directly  as  a  guide.  The  lower  principle  of  mere 
sequential  induction  sufficiently  serves  his  purpose. 
Yet  if  the  higher  principle  be  a  reality  and  not  a 
fiction,  it  must  meet  the  astronomer  equally  in  the 
end.  He  must  ascend  to  it.  He  can  not  rest, 
according  to  our  whole  previous  reasoning,  in  the 
mere  relation  of  sequence  with  which  he  sets  out. 
The  physiologist,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  said 
to  star^  with  the  principle  of  design  in  possession, 

*  Indications  of  the  Creator,  p.  130. 


156  THEISM. 

as  a  clew  of  discovery  ;  for  the  phenomena  with 
which  he  deals  are  no  longer  merely  sequential, 
but  teleological.  They  express  themselves  not  only 
as  related,  but  as  related  after  the  special  manner 
of  means  and  ends.  The  principle  of  design  has 
therefore,  it  may  be  granted,  a  special  application 
to  these  phenomena.  So  at  least  it  has  been  main- 
tained by  many  of  our  highest  physiologists, 
and  with  apparent  justice.  "Whereas  in  the  one 
case  it  is  only  the  final  answer  to  the  inevitable 
inquiry,  Whence  ?  in  the  other  it  is  present  from 
the  first,  every  where  suggesting  the  inquiry, 
Why? 

Yet  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  design  is 
only  thus  present  in  the  latter  case,  because  found 
in  all  cases,  in  relation  to  one  class  of  phenomena 
as  well  as  to  another — inorganic  as  well  as  organic 
— to  establish  itself  as  the  only  final  principle  of 
explanation.  It  is  only  possibly  present  as  a 
scientific  guide,  because  admitted  as  a  theological 
principle.  It  is  only  in  the  light  of  the  ultimate 
rational  necessity  which  finds  Mind  every  where  in 
nature,  that  design,  or  the  operation  of  Mind,  can 
be  especially  maintained  in  organic  phenomena. 
This  follows  in  the  clearest  manner  from  the  whole 
basis  of  our  previous  reasoning,  and  is  indubitable 
on  the  simple  ground,  that  nature  in  no  case  of 
itself  can  give  us  Mind,  but  only  reflect  it  in  the 
mirror  of  our  consciousness.  And  assuredly  there 


ORGANIZATION  —  DESIGN.  157 

is  no  rational  basis  on  which  we  can  conclude 
Mind  to  be  thus  reflected  in  one  set  of  natural 
phenomena  and  not  in  another.  Now  it  is  because 
the  language  of  Dr.  "Whewell  leaves  this,  as  it 
were,  in  doubt,  that  it  appears  to  us  objectionable. 
He  puts  aside  the  question  as  to  whether  the  mere 
aspect  of  order  and  symmetry  in  nature  is  sufficient 
to  lead  us  to  the  conception  of  design  and  intelli- 
gence ;  or,  in  other  words,  demands  this  conception 
in  order  to  its  explanation.  He  puts  aside  this 
question  as  one  not  necessarily  affecting  the  special 
scientific  doctrine  of  final  causes ;  whereas,  accord- 
ing to  our  whole  view,  it  is  one  most  vitally  affect- 
ing this  doctrine,  and  without  a  clear  settlement 
of  which,  this  doctrine  can  not  for  a  moment  be 
consistently  maintained. 

The  only  theistic  difference,  then,  in  the  phe- 
nomena now  before  us,  consists  in  the  more  vivid 
impression  of  Mind  which  they  give  us.  In  the 
very  conception  of  a  set  of  organs  related  to  one 
another  as  means  to  ends,  we  have  intelligence  di- 
rectly suggested.  The  contrivance  bespeaks  a  con- 
triver, yet  only  a  contriver  adequate  to  the  special 
result  in  each  case.  "While  here,  therefore,  we  may 
be  said  to  be  brought  more  immediately  into  the 
presence  of  Mind,  it  may  yet  be  doubted  whether" 
we  are  brought  so  near  to  the  first  or  supreme  Mind 
as  among  the  general  laws  of  astronomy  and  chem- 
istry. The  comparative  value  of  the  respective 


158  THEISM. 

phenomena  for  the  theistic  conclusion  may  in  this 
way  truly  admit  of  question  ;  and  we  can  'easily 
understand  how  some  minds  feel  themselves  more 
directly  borne  onward  to  this  conclusion  in  the  ul- 
timate region  of  inorganic  order,  than  while  mere- 
ly tarrying  amid  the  crowded  and  endless  intrica- 
cies of  organic  contrivance.  » 

The  true  view  seems  to  be,  that  the  study  of  the 
latter  phenomena  is  more  useful  in  educating  and 
strengthening  within  us  the  ideas  of  Divine  wis- 
dom and  goodness  ;  the  contemplation  of  the  former, 
in  carrying  us  backward  to  a  great  First  Cause. 
The  element  of  intelligence,  already  lying  at  the 
root  of  the  theistic  conception,  is  set  forth  in  clear 
and  engaging  brightness  by  the  variedly  curious 
and  beautiful  phenomena  of  organic  nature ;  while, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  evidence  for  the  Di- 
vine goodness  only  emerges  as  we  travel  onward 
to  the  facts  of  sentient  organism.*  The  higher 
complicacy  of  physiological  order  stamps  on  our 
minds  more  impressively  the  fact  of  the  Divine 
wisdom ;  while  the  subserviency  of  this  order  to 
ends  of  happiness  in  the  animal  creation,  brings, 
before  us  the  beneficence  of  the  Designer. 

Our  illustrative  evidence,  while  resting  from  the 
outset  on  the  same  logical  basis,  thus  truly  gathers 
force  and  comprehensiveness  for  our  special  conclu- 
sion as  it  proceeds.  Setting  out  with  the  theistic 

*  See  subsequent  chapter  on  "Sensation." 


ORGANIZATION  —  DESIGN.  159 

conception  in  its  most  naked  form,  it  clothes  itself 
with  the  full  attributes  of  that  conception,  as  it  ex- 
patiates over  a  wider  and  more  diversified  field  of 
induction 


§  II— CHAPTER  VI. 

SPECIAL  ORGANIC   PHENOMENA — VEGETABLE. 

IN  entering  on  the  wide  and  diversified  field  of 
organic  contrivance,  our  sole  difficulty  is  that  of 
selection.  So  crowded  is  it  with  illustrations  fitted 
to  our  subject,  that  volumes  might  easily  be  devot- 
ed to  special  sections  of  it ;  and  in  fact,  there  is  no 
other  department  of  our  evidence  that  has  received 
such  ample  and  varied,  and,  we  may  add,  such 
skillful  treatment.  The  work  of  Paley  alone  has 
made  all  familiar  with  its  interesting  details ;  and, 
conceived  as  this  work  is  throughout  in  so  fine  a 
vein  of  homely  English  sense  ;  rich  with  the  light 
of  a  meaning  every  where  clear  and  impressive,  if 
not  highly  consecutive  or  profound  ;  written,  more- 
over, with  such  inimitable  grace  and  felicity  of 
style — it  seems  as  if  it  were  at  once  presumptuous 
and  useless  for  us  to  enter  upon  ground  which  he 
has  traversed  with  such  fascinating  success.*  We 

*  The  Natural  Theology,  and  in  fact  the  general  works  of  Pa- 
ley,  have  of  late  somewhat  lost  the  distinction  they  once  enjoy- 
ed. This  is  undoubtedly  owing  to  their  marked  deficiency  in 


OKGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    161 

are  only  led  to  do  so  from  a  conviction  of  the  too 
obvious  gap  and  imperfection  which  would  other- 
wise be  left  in  the  course  of  our  illustrative  evi- 
dence. The  knowledge  of  what  has  been  already 
so  fully  accomplished  in  this  department,  will  at 
the  same  time  lead  us  to  dwell  upon  it  as  briefly  as 
we  can,  consistently  with  the  necessities  of  our 
plan. 

The  two  great  characteristics  of  organic  phenom- 
ena, in  their  lowest  forms,  we  have,  in  the  last 
chapter,  pointed  out  to  be  assimilation  and  repro- 
duction. The  plant,  down  to  its  least  developed 
specimen,  exhibits  these  properties  in  contradis- 
tinction to  any  specimen  of  inorganic  matter.  Or- 
ganization analyzed  to  its  finest  point — the  minute 


philosophic  depth  and  comprehension,  which  leaves  the  reader 
so  often  unsatisfied,  while  yet  pleased  with  their  admirable  clear- 
ness and  sense.  "With  an  exquisite  tact  and  homely  intellect 
unrivaled,  Paley  was  certainly  no  philosopher  ;  and  it  is  need- 
less now  to  urge  his  claims  in  this  respect.  "What  he  saw,  he 
saw  with  a  precision,  and  could  express  with  a  force  and  lucidi- 
ty unsurpassed  by  any  writer;  but,  for  the  most  part,  he  not 
only  did  not  see  far  into  the  deeper  bearings  of  his  subject,  but 
there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  desire  in  his  mind  to  do 
so.  It  will  not,  however,  be  a  good  sign  of  British  thought  if 
the  works  of  Paley  ever  come  to  be  generally  depreciated.  Types 
as  they  are  of  that  healthy  sobriety,  tolerant  temper,  and  quiet 
unobtrusive  piety,  which  have  hitherto  distinguished  the  high- 
est products  of  British  theology — characteristics  which,  in  the 
present  day,  we  may  well  pray  God  it  may  not  lose — their  study 
can  never  fail  to  be  highly  advantageous  to  the  Christian  stu- 
dent, and  to  reward  him  with  an  increase  of  strength  and  man- 
liness. 


162  THEISM. 

cell,  which  it  requires  the  highest  powers  of  the 
microscope  to  detect — is  marked  by  a  forming  pow- 
er, quite  distinct  from  any  thing  in  the  inorganic 
creation.  While  the  inorganic,  at  the  highest  point 
of  development,  is,  as  it  has  been  said,  a  mere 
carrier  offeree,  the  organic  is  essentially  a  center 
of  force. 

It  is  deserving  of  notice  how  complete  is  the 
structure  which  the  microscope  reveals  in  the  ele- 
mentary cell.  Beaching  to  the  rudimentary  source 
of  organization — the  hidden  workshop,  may  we  call 
it  ? — of  the  beautiful  forms  of  life  that  teem  all 
around,  we  are  here,  as  every  where,  in  the  presence 
of  order.  The  forming  hand  appears  in  the  most 
signal  manner,  although  we  can  not  trace  its  action, 
save  by  the  delicate  scrutiny  of  the  microscope. 

The  general  process  of  assimilation  or  nutrition 
in  plants  is  of  a  highly  interesting  description.  The 
various  organs  concerned  in  the  process — the  root, 
the  stem,  and  the  leaves — are  all  so  many  struc- 
tures of  the  most  exquisite  delicacy  and  beauty, 
furnishing,  in  their  study,  a  continued  illustration 
of  the  Divine  wisdom.  We  can  not  now,  however, 
dwell  upon  the  simple  construction  of  these  organs. 
Their  functions,  in  the  discharge  of  the  nutritive 
process,  are  for  our  object  even  more  interesting  ; 
and  to  the  consideration  of  these,  therefore,  we 
readily  pass. 

The  root  at  once  gives  stability  to  the  plant  in 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    163 

the  soil,  and,  by  the  fibrils  which  it  sends  forth  in 
all  directions,  collects  materials  for  its  food.  For 
this  latter  purpose,  the  fibril  roots,  with  the  main 
root  itself  (caudex),  are  provided  with  soft  porous 
terminations,  called  spongioles,  from  their  peculiar 
efficacy  in  imbibing  the  surrounding  moisture.  When 
the  moisture,  holding  different  matters  in  solution, 
has  been  absorbed,  it  ascends  through  the  stem — - 
by  modes  which  vary,  and  which  are  not  yet  in  all 
respects  thoroughly  understood — to  the  leaves, 
where  it  is  partly  exhaled,  and  partly  undergoes 
an  important  chemical  change,  rendering  it  fit  for 
becoming  assimilated.  The  leaves  are  the  peculiar 
seat  of  what  has  been  called  vegetable  digestion, 
though  the  entire  process  of  this  and  even  the  na- 
ture of  the  action  of  the  leaves,  are  still  involved 
in  considerable  obscurity.  It  is  certain,  however, 
that  during  the  day,  and  pre-eminently  during 
bright  sunshine,  they  are  ceaselessly  inhaling  from 
the  atmosphere  carbonic  acid,  decomposing  it,  ap- 
propriating and  assimilating  its  carbon,  and  exhal- 
ing its  oxygen.  It  is,  indeed,  believed  that  during 
darkness  this  process  is  inverted ;  that  oxygen  is 
absorbed,  and  combined  with  waste  or  superfluous 
carbon,  and  carbonic  acid  exhaled ;  but  still  we 
know  with  certainty,  from  its  own  continued  in- 
crement, that  the  plant  appropriates  more  carbon 
than  its  rejects  ;  .that  it  therefore  removes  from  the 
atmosphere  more  carbonic  acid  than  it  throws  out 


164  THEISM. 

into  it ;  and  thus  that  the  permanent  influence  of 
these  changes  upon  the  atmosphere  is  in  the  high- 
est degree  favorable,  the  assimilating  functions  op^ 
erating  much  more  powerfully  to  purify  than  the 
respiratory  to  vitiate  it.  Plants  are  thus,  in  con- 
tradistinction to  animals,  the  great  conservators  of 
atmospheric  purity. 

The  sap,  strengthened  and  enriched  in  the  labo- 
ratory of  the  leaves,  is  sent  back  from  them  to  the 
various  parts  of  the  plant  for  assimilation,  for  which 
it  has  now  become  exactly  fitted.  The  same  de- 
gree of  uncertainty  prevails  regarding  the  precise 
character  of  the  sap's  descent  as  exists  regarding 
its  ascent.  In  dicotyledonous  plants  its  main  cur- 
rent is  through  the  liber,  or  inner  portion  of  the 
bark,  but  it  also  descends  through  the  alburnum  or 
most  recently  formed  wood,  through  which,  in  the 
same  plants,  flows  the  main  current  of  the  ascend- 
ing sap.  In  monocotyledonous  plants  its  passage 
is  through  the  innermost  layer  of  the  structure, 
which  is  also  the  most  recently  formed.*  The  sap 

*  It  may  be  necessary  to  explain  for  some  readers  the  general 
classification  of  plants  into  three  great  divisions — viz.,  Dico- 
tyledons, Monocotyledons,  and  Acotyledons,  the  name  being  de- 
i-ived  from  the  structure  of  the  seed  in  the  first  t\vo  cases, 
which,  in  the  plants  of  the  first  division,  is  composed  of  two 
cotyledons,  or  lobes  inclosing  the  germ,  or  proper  seed ;  and  in 
plants  of  the  second  division,  is  composed  of  only  one  such 
cotyledon.  Plants  of  the  third  division,  such  as  ferns,  mosses, 
and  lichens,  have  no  seeds  properly  so  called,  and  hence,  as 
their  name  imports,  no  cotyledons.  They  are  propagated  by 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    165 

in  its  descent  deposits  the  materials  of  fresh  growth 
in  the  plant,  as  well  as  of  the  different  well-known 
products — gum,  sugar,  oils,  and  resin,  so  useful  in 
domestic  economy  and  in  the  arts.  At  the  root, 
whence  the  nutritive  process  started,  it  terminates 
with  imparting  hardness  and  tenacity  to  the  fibrils, 
and  bringing  matter  to  form  new  spongioles,  while 
the  old  are  gradually  covered  with  an  impervious 
cuticle. 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  this  process  with- 
out being  impressed  with  its  marvelous  fitness  and 
beauty.  "What  a  busy  scene  of  orderly  activity  is 
thus  every  plant  around  us,  from  the  noble  forest- 
tree  to  the  lowly  lichen.  And  when  we  contem- 
plate all  the  successive  and  intervolved  adaptation 
conducing  to  the  result,  and  again  how  the  life, 
which  is  the  result,  alone  gives  impulse  and  con- 
tinuance to  the  whole,  we  can  not,  surely,  doubt  the 
Wisdom  which  directs  and  controls  so  finely  ad- 
justed a  series  of  phenomena. 

The  phenomena  of  vegetable  reproduction  are 
even  more  strikingly  manifestive  of  creative  design. 

minute  granular  bodies  called  sporules,  which  are  really  nothing 
else  than  distinct  plants,  disjoined  from  the  parents,  and  in- 
creasing by  the  simple  addition  of  cellular  tissue.  The  first" 
and  second  classes  are  also  respectively  called  Exogenous  and 
Endogenous,  from  the  peculiar  formation  of  the  stem  in  each 
case — its  increase  in  the  first  class  proceeding  from  external  addi- 
tions, in  the  second  from  internal  development.  ISTew  matter  in 
the  one  case  is  formed  by  successive  layers  on  the  outside,  in  the 
other  by  succeEsive  layers  on  the  inside,  or  toward  the  center. 


166  THEISM. 

Passing  by  the  simpler  facts  displayed  by  the 
cryptogamous  vegetation,  we  have  in  the  reproduc- 
tive organs  of  the  higher-  classes  of  plants  some 
very  curious  and  complicated  adaptations. 

These  organs  are  all  embraced  in  what  is  botani- 
cally  called  the  flower.  Its  parts  consist  of  four 
series  or  whorls,  as  they  are  technically  termed — 1, 
the  calyx ;  2,  the  corolla ;  3,  the  stamen ;  4,  the 
pistil.  These  are  all  now  regarded  as  merely  trans- 
formations of  leaves,  altered  so  as  to  suit  the  par- 
ticular functions  which  each  performs.  They  some- 
times appear  in  the  form  of  true  leaves,  without  any 
marked- modification.  The  calyx  is  the  outer  cov- 
ering of  the  flower — the  symmetrical  cup  in  which 
it  commonly  rests.  It  is  usually  of  the  same  green 
color  as  the  leaves,  but  sometimes  also,  as  in  the 
fuchsia  and  Indian  cress,  it  is  differently  colored. 
Its  several  parts  are  termed  sepals.  The  corolla  is 
the  flower,  popularly  so  called ;  its  parts,  which  are 
sometimes  distinct  and  sometimes  united  in  various 
ways,  are  termed  petals.  "  The  petals  are  com- 
posed of  a  congeries  of  minute  cells,  each  contain- 
ing coloring  matter  and  delicate  spirals  interspersed, 
all  being  covejed  by  a  thin  epidermal  coat  or  skin. 
The  colored  cells  are  distinct  from  one  another,  and 
thus  a  dark  color  may  be  at  one  part  and  a  light 
color  at  another.  How  exquisitely  are  the  colors  of 
flowers  diversified,  and  with  what  a  masterly  skill 
are  their  varied  hues  arranged  !  Whether  blended 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    167 

or  separated,  as  Thornton  remarks,  they  are  evi- 
dently under  the  control  of  a  taste  which  never 
falls  short  of  the  perfection  of  elegance."* 

The  two  latter  or  inner  organs,  upon  which  the 
production  of  seed  essentially  depends,  show  a  pe- 
culiarly minute  and  delicate  structure.  The  pistil 
consists  of  a  hollow  tube  called  the  style,  terminat- 
ing at  one  end  in  a  kind  of  spongiole  named  the 
stigma ;  at  the  other,  in  the  seed-vessel  or  ovary 
The  stamens,  which  commonly,  as  in  the  rose,  in 
close  the  pistil,  consist  of  a  stalk  or  filament  sup- 
porting a  rounded  oblong  body  called  the  anther, 
the  cells  of  which  are  filled  with  the  fine  fecundat- 
ing powder  termed  pollen,  which  is  sometimes 
little  more  than  visible  to  common  inspection,  but 
presents,  under  the  microscope,  multiplied  distinct 
forms. 

There  is  a  singular  and  highly  interesting  nu- 
merical order  found  to  characterize  the  relation  of 
all  these  different  organs  of  the  plant  to  one  an- 
other. "  Thus,  if  a  flower  has  5  parts  of  the  calyx, 
it  has  usually  5  of  the  corolla  alternating  with 
them,  5,  10,  20,  etc.,  stamens,  and  5,  or  some  mul- 
tiple of  5,  in  the  parts  of  the  pistil."  And  equally 
so  when  the  parts  of  the  calyx  are  3 — the  numer- 
ical bases  of  3  and  5  being  the  most  generally  pre- 
vailing in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  although  the 
numbers  2  and  4,  with  their  multiples,  are  also  to 
*  BALFOUR'S  Botanical  Sketches,  p.  148. 


168  THEISM. 

be  found.  "  It  is  worthy  of  notice,"  adds  the  author 
from  whom  we  borrow  these  facts,  "  that  flowers 
exhibiting  5  or  4,  or  multiples  of  these  numbers, 
in  their  whorls,  usually  belong  to  plants  having 
two  seed-lobes  or  cotyledons,  and  which,  when 
they  form  permanent  woody  stems,  exhibit  dis- 
tinct zones  or  circles,  and  have  separable  bark ; 
while  flowers  having  3,  or  a  multiple  of  3,  in  their 
whorls,  present  only  one  seed-lobe,  and  when  they 
form  permanent  woody  stems,  exhibit  no  distinct 
zones  nor  circles,  and  have  no  separable  bark. 
The  numbers  2  and  4,  or  multiples  of  them,  are 
seen  also  in  the  parts  of  fructification  of  flowerless 
plants  which  have  no  seed-lobes,  such  as  ferns, 
mosses,  sea- weeds,  etc.  The  processes  which  pro- 
ject from  the  urn-like  cases  of  mosses  are  arranged 
in  the  series  of  4,  8,  12,  16,  32,  64,  etc.  The  parts 
of  fructification  of  scale-mosses  (Jungermannue)  are 
in  fours,  as  also  the  germs  of  some  sea-weeds. 
Thus  the  numbers  5  and  4  and  their  multiples 
prevail  among  dicotyledonous  and  exogenous 
plants ;  the  number  3  and  its  multiples  occur 
among  monocotyledonous  or  endogenous  plants ; 
while  2  and  4,  and  multiples  of  them,  are  met 
with  among  acotyledonous  or  acrogenous  plants."* 
The  theistic  conclusion  undoubtedly  receives 
confirmation  from  these  and  all  other  evidences  of 
exact  numerical  relations  in  nature.  They  express 

*  BALFOUR'S  Sketcles,  pp.  137,  138, 


OEGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    169 

very  clearly  the  Divine  plan  every  where  stamped 
on  it. 

Let  us  now  mark  the  reproductive  process  as 
subserved  by  these  organs.  Fecundation  is  the 
immediate  result  of  communication  between  the 
stamens  and  pistil — the  former,  which  produce  the 
pollen,  being  the  active  or  male,  the  latter  the  re- 
ceptive or  female  organs.  In  the  great  majority 
of  cases  the  stamens  and  pistil  are  found  on  the 
same  plant,  the  former  overtopping  the  latter — an 
arrangement  which  gives  the  most  simple  mode  of 
fecundation,  by  enabling  the  stigma  readily  to  re- 
ceive the  falling  pollen  as  it  bursts  from  the  anther. 
In  order  to  secure  this  purpose  more  effectually, 
the  stigma  exudes  a  slightly  glutinous  fluid,  to 
which  the  grains  of  pollen  adhere.  These  grains, 
whose  manifold  structure,  as  seen  under  the  micro- 
scope, has  been  already  noticed,  have  each  two 
coats,  one  of  which  bursts  when  the  grain  is  ripe, 
and  the  other,  in  touching  the  stigma,  elongates 
itself  into  the  shape  of  a  slender  tube,  passing 
downward  through  the  style  into  the  ovary,  and 
so  conveying  to  the  germ  the  vivifying  fluid. 
"  The  cells  of  the  stigma  are  beautifully  contrived 
to  admit  the  passage  of  these  tubes,  as  they  are 
long,  and  extremely  loose  in  texture,  at  the  same 
time  so  moist  and  elastic  as  to  be  easily  compressed 
when  necessary.  It  is  so  contrived  that  the  minute 
particles  contained  in  the  grains  enter  slowly  to 

8 


170  THEISM. 

the  ovary,  as  it  seems  necessary  that  the  fecundat- 
ing matter  should  be  admitted  by  degrees.  It  is 
also  necessary  that  the  tube  should  enter  the  fora- 
men of  the  ovule  ;  and  as  the  ovule  is  not  always 
in  a  proper  position  to  receive  it,  it  will  be  found 
to  erect  itself  or  to  turn,  as  the  case  may  be,  while 
the  granules  of  the  pollen  grains  are  passing  down 
the  tubes."* 

In  drooping  flowers,  such  as  the  fuchsia — where 
it  would  be  obviously  no  longer  fitting  that  the 
stamens  should  exceed  the  pistil  in  length,  as 
thereby  the  pollen  would  be  scattered  on  the 
ground  instead  of  reaching  the  stigma — the  rela- 
tion of  the  parts  is  found  inverted  in  correspond- 
ence with  the  altered  character  of  the  plant.  And, 
in  fact,  nothing  can  be  more  beautiful  and  impress- 
ive than  the  great  variety  of  adaptations  by  which, 
in  special  cases,  communication  is  secured  between 
the  pollen  and  the  pistils.  "  In  the  common  net- 
tle the  stamens  have  elastic  filaments,  which  are  at 
first  bent  down,  so  as  to  be  obscured  by  the  calyx ; 
but  when  the  pollen  is  ripe,  the  filaments  jerk  out, 
and  thus  scatter  the  powder  on  the  pistils,  which 
occupy  separate  flowers.  In  the  common  barberry, 
the  lower  part  of  the  filament  is  very  irritable  ;  and 
whenever  it  is  touched,  the  stamen  moves  forward 
to  the  pistil.  In  the  style-wort  (Stylidium)  the 
stamens  and  pistil  are  united  in  a  common  column 

*  Vegetable  Physiology,  p.  79.     Edinburgh  :  Chambers. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  VEGETABLE.    171 

which  projects  from  the  flower;  this  column  is 
very  irritable  at  the  angle  where  it  leaves  the 
flower,  and  when  touched,  it  passes  with  a  sudden 
jerk  from  one  side  to  the  other,  and  thus  scatters  the 
pollen.  In  the  hazel,  where  the  pollen  is  in  one 
set  of  flowers  and  the  pistil  in  another,  the  leaves 
might  interfere  with  the  application  of  the  pollen, 
and  therefore  they  are  not  produced  until  it  has 
been  scattered."*  In  Dioecious  plants,  such  as  the 
willow,  where  the  flowers  are  not  only  unisexual, 
but  the  stamen-bearing  are  on  one  tree  and  the 
pistil-bearing  on  another,  the  process  of  communi- 
cation is  effected  in  some  cases  by  the  winds,  but 
in  other  cases,  after  a  more  complicated  and  inge- 
nious manner,  by  insects.  The  bee,  while  provid- 
ing food  for  its  young,  is  at  the  same  time  aiding 
in  the  dispersion  of  the  pollen.  The  peculiar  shape 
of  some  flowers — the  Orchids  especially — seems  to 
form  an  attraction  for  certain  insects  which  are 
helpful  in  the  same  office.  One  of  the  most  re- 
markable examples  of  this  insect-agency  in  the 
distribution  of  the  pollen  is  furnished  by  the  birth- 
wort  (Aristolochia).  In  this  plant  the  "flower 
consists  of  a  long  tube  in  a  chamber,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  which  the  stamens  and  pistils  are  placed, 
completely  shut  out  from  the  agency  of  the  winds. 
It  is  frequented,  in  its  native  country,  by  an  insect 
which  enters  the  tube  easily,  ar.d  gets  into  the  little 

*  BALFOUR'S  Sketches,  pp.   152-154. 


172  THEISM. 

chambei.  On  attempting  to  get  out,  it  is  p  revented 
by  a  series  of  hairs  in  the  tube,  which  all  point  down- 
ward. It  therefore  moves  about  in  the  little  cavity, 
and  thus  distributes  the  pollen  on  the  pistil,  soon  af- 
ter which  the  flower  withers  and  the  insect  escapes."* 

When  impregnation  is  completed,  the  other  parts 
of  the  flower  decay,  while  the  "gravid  seed-vessel" 
increases  in  balk,  till  it  becomes,  under  very  diver- 
sified forms,  what  is  called  the  fruit.  All  these 
forms,  many  of  which  are  so  familiarly  known  and 
useful,  would  seern  to  have  one  prime  object  in 
view,  viz.  the  preservation  of  the  seed.  The  pro- 
duction of  this  seed  has  been  the  great  end  of  the 
process  hitherto  described;  and,  this  end  accom- 
plished, the  flower  dies,  while  the  energies  of  the 
plant  are  turned  to  the  nursing  of  the  little  embryo 
which  it  has  left  behind,  and  which  is  destined  in 
its  time  to  advance  into  new  forms  of  flora]  beauty. 
"Nothing,"  adds  Paley,f  "can  be  more  single  than 
the  design,  more  diversified  than  the  means.  Pel- 
licles, shells,  pulps,  pods,  husks,  skin,  scales  armed 
with  horns,  are  all  employed  Li  prosecuting  the 
same  intention." 

When  the  seeds  reach  maturity,  their  dispersion 
is  provided  for  in  various  interesting  ways.  In 
some  cases  the  fruit  falls  without  opening,  and 
gradually  decays,  forming  a  sort  of  manure  with 

*  BALFOUR'S  Sketches,  pp.  158,  159. 

f  Natural  Theology,  Knight's  edit.,  vol.  iii.  p.  58. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA — VEGETABLE.    173 

the  soil  in  which  the  plant  sprouts.  In  other  cases 
the  seed-vessels  open  and  scatter  the  seeds.  "In 
the  common  broom,  the  pod,  when  ripe,  opens  with 
considerable  force :  so  also  the  fruit  of  the  sandbox- 
tree,  and  the  balsam,  which  is  called  Touch-me- 
not,  on  account  of  its  seed-vessel  bursting  when 
touched.  The  squirting  cucumber,  when  handled 
in  its  ripe  state,  gives  way  at  the  point  where  the 
fruit  joins  the  stalk,  and  the  seeds  are  sent  out  with 
amazing  force.  The  common  geranium  seed- 
vessels  curl  up  when  ripe,  and  scatter  the  seeds. 
In  the  case  of  firs,  bignonias,  and  some  other  plants, 
the  seeds  are  furnished  with  winged  appendages ; 
while  in  the  cotton-plant  and  asclepias  they  have 
hairs  attached  to  them,  by  means  of  which  they  are 
wafted  to  a  distance."  "  The  plant  called  Kose  of 
Jericho  becomes  dried  up  like  a  ball,  and  is  tossed 
about  by  the  wind  until  it  conies  into  contact  with 
water,  when  its  small  pods  open,  and  the  seeds  are 
scattered ;  and  a  species  of  fig-marigold  in  Africa 
opens  its  seed-vessel  when  moisture  is  applied." 
"In  the  dandelion,  the  leaves  which  surround  the 
clusters  or  heads  of  flowers  are  turned  downward, 
the  receptacle  becomes  convex  and  dry,  the  hairs 
spread  out  so  as  to  form  a  parachute-like  appendage 
to  each  fruit,  and  collectively  to  present  the  appear- 
ance of  a  ball,  and  in  this  way  the  fruit  is  prepared 
for  being  dispersed  by  the  winds."* 

*  BALFOUR'S  Sketches,  pp.  44,  172-174. 


174  THEISM. 

The  seed  being  deposited  in  the  soil,  the  process 
of  germination  takes  place  under  the  influence  of 
heat,  air,  and  moisture.  The  embryo  sends  forth, 
in  one  direction,  a  number  of  fibrous  threads,  which 
fix  the  plant  in  the  ground.  The  radicle,  in  short, 
becomes  the  root.  The  plumule  on  the  other  side 
elongates  itself,  rising  into  the  air  in  the  form  of 
the  stem,  frequently  accompanied  by  one  or  more 
cotyledons  or  seed-leaves,  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  plant. 

And  thus  the  great  processes  of  nutrition  and  re- 
production again  proceed  in  the  same  varied  and 
beautiful  round,  proclaiming  the  Wisdom  which 
guides  and  which  guards  the  whole. 

We  might  add  indefinitely  to  the  force  of  these 
illustrations,  by  a  consideration  of  the  same  pro- 
cesses as  exemplified  in  the  animal  kingdom.  In 
this  field  we  might  easily  glean  some  examples  of 
peculiarly  elaborate  and  striking  contrivance,*  sub- 
servient to  the  production  and  preservation  of  those 
higher  and  more  complex  forms  of  life  which  here 
meet  us.  The  numerous  and  intricate  organs  em- 
ployed in  digestion,  in  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
in  respiration,  and  the  exquisite  order  and  regu- 
larity with  which  they  perform  their  functions,  are 


*  The  suckling  of  the  kangaroo,  admirably  described  by  Dr. 
Whewell  (Indications  of  the  Creator,  p.  123,  124),  is  among  the 
most  remarkable  of  such  instances  for  complication,  and  at  the 
same  time  propriety,  of  contrivance. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA — VEGETABLE.    175 

especially  marked  with  instructive  meaning  in  ref- 
erence to  our  subject.  As,  however,  according  to 
our  whole  plan,  we  do  not  and  can  not  aim  at  a 
mere  accumulation  of  instances  which  do  not  add 
some  significance  to  our  evidence,  we  pass  onward 
to  those  higher  illustrations  presented  by  the  mus- 
cular and  nervous  phenomena,  which  are  con- 
sidered to  be  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the 
animal  kingdom. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  VII. 

SPECIAL    OKGANIC    PHENOMENA    CONTINUED — 
ANIMAL. 

BICHAT  first  clearly  propounded  the  distinction 
between  merely  vegetable  and  animal  life*  which 
is  now  generally  accepted.  Besides  the  functions 
of  nutrition  and  reproduction  which  the  animal 
shares  with  the  plant,  the  former  is  characterized 
by  two  special  tissues,  the  muscular  and  the  nerv- 
ous, issuing  in  distinctive  manifestations  of  vitali- 
ty, higher  than  those  to  be  found  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  as  formerly  said, 
whether  the  separation  thus  marked  out  be  clear 
and  decided.  We  have  certainly,  among  plants, 
at  least  the  shadow  of  these  higher  vital  develop- 
ments which  so  prominently  mark  the  animal  crea- 
tion, as  in  the  phenomena  of  irritability  in  the 
Venus'  fly-trap,  the  sensitive-plant,  and  some  others. 
In  the  former  plant  the  leaves  are  marked  by  three 

*  Bichat's  own  language  is  organic  and  relative;  but  we  pre- 
fer, for  obvious  reasons,  the  less  technical,  more  readily  intelli- 
gible language 


ORGANIC  PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.  177 

projecting  hairs,  which,  when  touched,  have  the 
singular  property  of  causing  the  leaf  to  fold  upon 
itself,  shutting  in  the  insect  which  may  have  caused 
the  movement.  The  mode  in  which  the  leaves  of 
the  sensitive- plant  fold  themselves  together  on  the 
slightest  touch  is  still  more  familiarly  known.  Ke- 
markable  as  these  movements  are,  however,  the 
conclusion  of  botanical  authorities,  upon  the  whole, 
appears  to  be  against  the  supposition  of  their  being 
identical  in  source  with  similar  movements  in  ani- 
mals. "  They  are  not  dependent,"  says  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Botany  in  Edinburgh,  "  on  nervous  and 
muscular  power,  as  is  the  case  in  animals,  but  they 
seem  to  be  caused  by  the  greater  or  less  distension 
of  cells  connected  with  the  base  of  the  leaves  and 
of  the  leaf-stalks."* 

The  peculiar  property  of  the  muscular  tissue  is 
denominated  contractility.  It  is  simply  the  power 
possessed  by  the  muscles  of  contracting  or  shorten- 
ing themselves.  This  contractile  power  is  observa- 
ble in  the  lowest  class  of  animals,  although  they 
do  not  present  any  distinct  trace  of  a  fibrous  struc- 
ture. In  the  inferior  zoophytes — such  as  the  Infu- 
soria, Polypi,  Medusae — -the  whole  body  seems  to 
exhibit  an  incessant  action  upon  the  surrounding 
fluid,  maintained  by  means  of  "  very  minute  and 
generally  microscopic  filaments"  called  cilia,  and 
which  apparently  serve  in  the  case  of  these  genera 

*  BALFOUR'S  Sketches,  p.  131. 
8* 


i     8  THEISM. 

nv  t  only  the  purpose  of  progressive  motion,  but 
also  of  respiration,  and  of  procuring  a  supply  of 
food.*  In  the  Eadiata  generally,  however,  no  dis- 
tinct muscles  can  be  said  to  be  traced,  and  their 
powers  of  movement  are  for  the  most  part  very 
limited. 

As  we  ascend  the  scale  of  animal  life  we  begin 
to  observe  the  formation  of  fibers,  at  first  irregular- 
ly dispersed  through  the  soft  body,  and  then,  as  the 
organization  becomes  more  complex,  collected  into 
bundles,  composing  what  are  properly  called  mus- 
cles.f  In  many  of  the  Articulata  the  muscular 
system  is  highly  developed.  Lyonet  is  said  to  have 
counted  in  some  species  of  caterpillar  not  fewer  than 
four  thousand  muscular  bands ;  and  the  extraordi- 
nary weights  which  ants  and  beetles  easily  move, 
prove  the  muscular  energy  to  be  very  powerful  in 
these  creatures.  It  is  in  the  Yertebrata,  however, 
and  especially  as  displayed  in  the  human  body, 
that  the  muscular  system  has  been  most  carefully 
studied,  and  is  most  familiarly  known.  And  from 
this  comparatively  limited,  but  very  adequate 
sphere,  our  illustrations  will  for  the  most  part  be 
drawn. 

The  bundle-fcrm  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
characteristics  of  the  muscular  tissue.  The  com- 
pact bundle  is  foixnd,  on  examination,  to  be  com- 
posed of  a  series  of  lervser  and  lesser  bundles,  firm- 

*  IV.  ROGET,  Bridg.  TV-art    vol.  i.  p.  126.         f  Ibid.,  p.  126. 


ORGANIC  PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.  179 

ly  bound  together  in  sheaths.  "  The  dilatation  of 
the  muscular  fibers  in  thickness,  which  accom- 
panies their  contraction  in  length,  would,  if  these 
fibers  had  been  loose  and  unconnected,  have  occa- 
sioned too  great  a  separation  and  displacement,  and 
have  impeded  their  co-operation  in  one  common 
effect.  Nature  has  guarded  against  this  evil  by 
collecting  a  certain  number  of  the  elementary 
fibrils,  and  tying  them  together  with  threads  of  cel- 
lular substances,  thus  forming  them  into  a  larger 
fiber ;  and,  again,  packing  a  number  of  these  fibers 
into  larger  bundles,  always  surrounding  each  packet 
with  a  web  of  cellular  tissue."* 

As  muscular  action  is  wholly  the  result  of  the 
contractile  power  possessed  by  the  tissue,  it  is  obvi» 
ous  that  reciprocal  sets  of  such  muscular  bundles 
as  we  have  described  are  necessary  to  produce  the 
varied  and  reciprocal  motions  of  animals.  As 
Paleyf  states  and  illustrates  the  fact:  "It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  reciprocal  energetic  motion  of  the 
limbs,  by  which  we  mean  motion  with  force  in 
opposite  directions,  can  only  be  produced  by  the 
instrumentality  of  opposite  or  antagonistic  muscles 
— of  flexors  and  extensors  answering  to  each  other. 
For  instance,  the  muscles  placed  in  the  front  part 
of  the  upper  arm,  by  their  contraction  bend  the 
elbow,  and  with  such  degree  of  force  as  the  case 

*  Dr.  ROGET,  Bridgewater  Treatise,  vol.  i.  p,  130. 

f  Natural  Theology,  vol,  i.  pp.  104,  105;  Knight's  edit, 


180  THEISM. 

requires  or  the  strength  admits  of.  The  relaxation 
of  these  muscles  after  the  effort  would  merely  let 
the  fore-arm  drop  down.  For  the  back  stroke, 
therefore,  and  that  the  arm  may  not  only  bend  at 
the  elbow,  but  also  extend  and  straighten  itself  with 
force,  other  muscles,  placed  on  the  hinder  part  of 
the  arms,  by  their  contractile  twitch,  fetch  back  the 
fore-arm  into  a  straight  line  with  the  cubit,  with  no 
less  force  than  that  with  which  it  was  beat  out  of 
it.  The  same  thing  obtains  in  all  the  limbs,  and  in 
every  movable  part  of  the  body.  A  finger  is  not 
bent  and  straightened  without  the  contraction  of 
two  muscles  taking  place.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  the  animal  functions  require  that  particular 
disposition  of  the  muscles  which  we  describe  by 
the  name  of  antagonist  muscles.  And  they  are 
accordingly  so  disposed.  Every  muscle  is  provided 
with  an  adversary.  They  act,  like  two  sawyers  in 
a  pit,  by  an  opposite  pull ;  and  nothing  surely  can 
more  strongly  indicate  design  and  attention  to  an 
end  than  their  being  thus  stationed."  To  which 
Sir  C.  Bell  in  a  note  adds :  "  The  muscles  are  an- 
tagonists  certainly,  but  there  is  a  fine  combination 
and  adjustment  in  their  action,  which  is  not  illus- 
trated by  the  two  sawyers  dividing  a  log  of  wood. 
The  muscle  having  finished  what  we  call  its  action 
or  contraction,  is  not  in  the  condition  of  a  loose 
rope,  but,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  always  a  perfect 
balance  of  action  preserved  between  the  extent  of 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.    181 

relaxation  of  the  one  class  of  muscles  and  the  con- 
traction of  the  other ;  and  there  is  a  tone  in  both 
by  which  the  limb  may  be  sustained  in  any  posture 
that  is  willed." 

The  muscles  are  attached  by  tendons  or  sinews  to 
the  parts  to  be  moved :  and  there  is  often  singular 
contrivance  shown  in  the  mode  in  which  these  are 
made  to  act.  The  most  obvious  and  simple  mode 
of  producing  motion,  would  of  course  be  to  stretch 
the  tendons  in  a  straight  line  betwixt  the  parts  to 
be  moved.  But  this  would  not,  in  many  cases, 
suit  the  convenience  of  the  body.  The  muscles 
are,  in  consequence,  found  in  positions  whence  they 
can  only  act  on  the  movable  object  in  an  oblique 
manner,  and  with  a  corresponding  loss  of  force, 
but,  at  the  same  time,  with  an  increase  of  velocity, 
and  a  saving  of  muscular  contraction  highly  advan- 
tageous. Muscles  acting  after  this  oblique  fashion 
are  often  used  in  pairs,  in  which  case  the  direction 
of  motion  is  the  diagonal  line  between  them — an 
arrangement  which,  in  certain  movements  of  the 
body,  is  productive  of  a  rapid  and  easy  motion 
particularly  desirable.  The  action  of  the  chest  in 
breathing  is  of  this  kind.* 

In  certain  parts  of  the  body,  where  mobility  is 
especially  requisite,  a  condensation  of  muscular 
fibers  would  have  been  especially  incommodious. 
By  a  skillful  provision,  the  muscles  are  in  such 

*  Dr.  ROGET,  p.  132. 


182  THEISM. 

cases  placed  at  a  distance,  where  their  presence  is 
subservient  to  the  beauty  of  the  corporeal  outline ; 
while  they  are,  at  the  same  time,  by  a  special  ap- 
paratus of  long  tendons,  stretching  like  wires  from 
a  mechanical  center,  brought  within  range  of  their 
appropriate  sphere  of  action.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  the  muscles  which  move  the  hands  and  feet 
are  found  respectively  in  the  arm  and  the  calf  of 
the  leg,  instead  of  forming,  as  Paley  expresses  it, 
an  "  unwieldy  tumefaction  in  the  hands  and  feet 
themselves.  The  observation,"  he  adds,  "  may  be 
repeated  of  the  muscle  which  draws  the  nictitating 
membrane  over  the  eye.  Its  office  is  in  the  front 
of  the  eye,  but  its  body  is  lodged  in  the  back 
part  of  the  globe,  where  it  lies  safe,  and  where  it 
encumbers  nothing."* 

There  are  many  other  advantages  connected  with 
the  use  of  tendons  which  have  been  carefully 
pointed  outf  By  their  intervention  the  whole 
concentrated  power  of  the  muscular  fibers  is  con- 
veniently brought  to  bear  upon  any  particular 
point  where  an  accumulation  of  force  is  necessary. 
The  action  is  upon  the  very  same  principle  on 
which  a  number  of  men  pull  together  at  a  rope,  in 
order  to  influence  by  their  combined  strength  a 
given  position.  By  means  of  tendons,  also,  a 

*  Natural  Theology,  vol.  ii.  p.  106. 

f  Dr.  ROGET,  p.  134, 135,  to  whose  treatise  we  are  here,  and 
throughout  this  description,  greatly  indebted. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.    183 

change  of  direction  may  be  imparted  to  the  mov- 
ing power,  without  any  alteration  of  its  place. 
Tendons  are  thus  found,  in  numerous  instances, 
"  to  pass  round  corners  of  bones,  and  along  grooves 
or  channels  expressly  formed  for  their  transmis- 
sion, producing  the  effect  of  pulleys."  The  troch- 
lear  muscle  of  the  eye  acts  in  this  manner.  It 
passes  round  a  cartilaginous  support  and  turns 
back,  just  like  a  rope  round  a  pulley.  By  a  simi- 
lar mode  of  muscular  action  the  lower  jaw  is  pulled 
down,  the  moving  power  proceeding  not  from  be- 
low but  from  above  the  jaw — rising,  in  fact,  in  the 
side  of  the  face,  and  of  course  descending  in  the 
first  instance,  but,  at  a  certain  point,  taking  a  turn 
and  then  ascending — which  is  the  direction  in  which 
it  could  alone  produce  the  appropriate  effect.* 

The  peculiar  configuration  of  certain  muscles 
serves  still  further  to  show  the  design  with  which 
they  are  marked.  In  many  cases  "  the  fibers,  in- 
stead of  running  parallel  to  one  another,  are  made 
either  to  converge  or  to  diverge,  in  order  to  suit 
particular  kinds  of  movements ;  and  we  frequently 
find  that  different  portions  of  the  same  muscle  have 
the  power  of  contracting  independently  of  the 
rest,  so  as  to  be  capable  of  producing  very  various 
effects,  according  as  they  act  separately  or  in  com- 
bination."f  The  muscle  of  the  back,  called  the 

*  PALEY'S  Natural  Theology,  vol.  i.  p.  116. 
f  Dr.  ROOET,  vol  i.  p.  135. 


184  THEISM. 

trapezius,  is  an  example  of  this.  Sometimes  they 
radiate  from  a  common  center,  as  in  the  delicate 
muscle  of  the  ear-drum ;  and  at  other  times  they 
run  in  a  circular  direction,  forming  what  is  called 
an  orbicular  or  sphincter  muscle.  In  the  mem- 
brane of  the  eye  called  the  iris  these  two  last-men- 
tioned muscles  are  combined  with  beautiful  effect. 
On  the  application  of  too  much  light,  the  circular 
fibers  directly  surrounding  the  pupil  instantaneous- 
ly contract,  diminishing  its  size ;  while  again,  when 
more  light  is  needed,  the  contraction  of  the  radiat- 
ing fibers,  acting  on  the  circular,  serves  as  instan- 
taneously to  enlarge  the  pupil.  The  instinctive 
character  of  this  balanced  action  (the  will  having 
but  a  slight  and  occasional  control  over  it)  espe- 
cially evinces  foresight ;  for  thus  alone  does  it  re- 
spond with  unerring  precision  to  all  the  varying 
necessities  and  circumstances  of  the  animal.  A 
somewhat  corresponding  action  of  circular  fibers 
with  longitudinal,  distinguishes  the  muscular  coats 
surrounding  canals  of  various  kinds,  such  as  the 
blood-vessels,  and  the  alimentary  tube ;  the  former 
tending,  by  their  contraction,  to  extend  the  canal 
and  propel  its  contents — the  latter,  agaiu,  by 
their  contraction,  having  a  tendency  to  shorten 
it."* 

One  of  the  most  general  and  remarkable  charac- 
teristics of  muscular  action  in  the  limbs  remains  to 

*  Dr.  ROGET,  voL  i.  p.  147. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL   185 

be  mentioned.  It  takes  place  at  what  is  called  a 
mechanical  disadvantage.  The  axis  of  motion  is 
much  nearer  to  the  exciting  force  than  to  the  re- 
sistance to  be  overcome.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
great  sacrifice  of  power  in  this  way ;  but  while  this 
is  compensated,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  special 
energy  of  the  muscular  exertion,  on  the  other 
hand,  velocity  and  freedom  of  motion  (which  are 
the  great  requisites  in  the  animal  system)  are  ob- 
tained in  proportion  to  the  mechanical  disadvan- 
tage. "Strength  is  sacrificed,"  as  Dr.  Eoget  ob- 
serves,* "  without  scruple,  to  beauty  of  form  or 
convenience  of  purpose ;  and  that  disposition  of 
the  force  is  always  adopted  from  which,  on  the 
whole,  the  greatest  practical  benefit  results.  Eve- 
ry where  do  we  find  the  wisest  adaptation  of  mus- 
cular power  to  the  objects  proposed,  whether  it  be 
exerted  in  laborious  efforts  of  the  limbs  and  trunk ; 
whether  employed  in  balancing  the  frame  or  urg- 
ing it  into  quick  progression  ;  or  whether  it  be  ap- 
plied to  direct  the  delicate  evolutions  of  the  fingers, 
the  rapid  movements  of  the  organs  of  speech,  or 
the  more  exquisite  adjustment  of  the  eye,  or  of  the 
internal  ear." 

It  were  difficult,  indeed,  to  conceive  a  more  im- 
pressive display  of  design  than  is  represented  by 
all  the  varied  and  intricate  action  of  the  muscular 
system  in  any  of  the  higher  animals,  and  in  the 

*  Dr.  ROGET,  vol  i.  p.  141. 


186  THEISM. 

human  frame  especially.  All  is  hidden  from  our 
view  beneath  the  covering  of  skin  which  encases 
and  protects  the  delicate  machinery.  But  could 
we  see  within,  and  trace  the  unceasing  play  of 
muscular  adjustment  under  any  of  our  most  com- 
mon movements,  nothing  could  be  more  wonderful 
than  the  spectacle  exhibited.  The  movement  of 
the  eye  in  vision,  of  the  ear  in  hearing,  of  the 
tongue  and  larynx  in  speaking,  all  depend  upon 
relations  of  the  nicest  and  most  complicated  de- 
scription, whose  operation,  unceasing  as  it  is,  is  at 
the  same  time  unwearying.  How  wonderful  the 
muscular  endurance  of  the  heart  alone,  which  con- 
tracts "with  a  force  equal  to  sixty  pounds  eighty 
times  every  minute,  for  eighty  years  together,  with- 
out being  tired  1"*  When  the  hand  performs  any 
common  task — executes  a  piece  of  music,  for  ex- 
ample, or  simply  writes — how  numerous  the 
muscles  brought  into  play,  and  yet  how  happily 
measured,  definite,  and  wholly  uninterfering  their 
mutual  action  !  "Not  a  letter,"  as  Paley  has  well 
described  the  latter  case,  "  can  be  turned  without 
more  than  one,  or  two,  or  three  tendinous  contrac- 
tions— definite,  both  as  to  the  choice  of  the  tendon, 
and  as  to  the  space  through  which  the  contraction 
moves ;  yet  how  currently  does  the  work  pro- 
ceed !  and  when  we  look  at  it,  how  faithful  have 
the  muscles  been  to  their  duty !  how  true  to 

*  Animal  Physiology,  p-  "74.     Edinburgh  :   Chambers. 


ORGANIC    P  HEN  CM  EN  A- -ANIMAL.      187 

the  order  which  endeavor  or  habit  hath  incul- 
cated !"* 

The  disposition  of  so  many  muscles  in  the  human 
body  (anatomists  have  given  names  to  between 
four  and  five  hundred),  often  so  closely  contiguous 
to  one  another,  that  they  are  found  "  in  layers,  as 
it  were,  over  one  another,  crossing  one  another, 
sometimes  imbedded  in  one  another;  sometimes  per- 
forating one  another,"  yet  all  so  perfectly  arranged 
that  they  never  obstruct  or  interfere  with  one  an- 
other— this  of  itself  surely  furnishes  evidence  of 
design  which  it  is  impossible  to  resist.  What,  save 
prescient  Wisdom,  could  have  devised  an  arrange- 
ment at  once  so  exquisitely  intervolved,  and  so 
faultlessly  harmonious. 

In  advancing  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the 
nervous  system,  we  enter  upon  a  sphere  of  illustra- 
tion peculiarly  significant  for  our  subject.  For  the 
nerves  are  not,  like  the  muscles,  simply  examples 
of  organic  contrivance  ;  they  are  the  seats  of  sensa- 
tion, the  media  of  animal  consciousness,  in  whose 
varied  phenomena  we  find  the  appropriate  evi- 
dence, not  only  of  Divine  wisdom,  but  especially 
of  Divine  goodness.  In  this  chapter,  however,  we 
glance  at  the  nervous  system  simply  in  its  organic 
arrangement,  as  contributing,  in  the  mere  compli- 
cacy and  order  of  its  parts,  to  the  force  of  our  pre- 
ceding evidence.  The  mental  meaning,  which 

*  Natural  Theology,  vol.  ii.  p.  113. 


188  THEISM. 

every  where  underlies  it,  will  immediately  receive 
full  attention. 

The  nervous,  like  the  muscular  system,  is  found, 
in  the  lower  animal  races,  in  a  very  undeveloped 
state.  In  the  very  lowest,  indeed,  including  the 
Porifera  (sponges) ;  Polypifera  (mushroom  corals) ; 
Polygastrica  (infusory  animalcules) ;  Acalephse 
(sea-blubbers)  ;  and  Entozoa  (intestinal  worms),  no 
trace  of  it  can  be  detected  by  the  closest  scrutiny. 
These  animals  are  hence  arranged  by  zoologists 
into  a  sub -kingdom  by  themselves,  under  the  name 
of  Acrita.  It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that 
the  neurine  or  nervous  matter  is  really  absent  in 
these  races.  It  is  no  doubt  present,  although  it 
can  not  be  traced  ;  not  gathered  into  masses,  nor 
even  into  threads,  but  probably  diffused  in  imper- 
ceptible atoms  through  the  wtole  of  their  very 
simple  structure.* 

In  the  races  immediately  above  the  preceding, 
the  nervous  matter  is  distinctly  visible  in  the  shape 
of  threads  dispersed  through  the  "body.  They  are 
hence  arranged  in  a  sub-kingdom,  under  the  name 
of  Nematoneura,  the  most  interesting  and  import- 
ant section  of  which  are  the  Echinodermata,  or 
star-fishes. 

In  the  Articulata  we  reach  a  further  and  very 
significant  development  of  the  nervous  structure. 
It  is  no  longer  merely  in  the  form  of  threads,  but 

*  Gosss's  Text-Book  of  Zoology,  p.  1. 


ORGANIC  PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.  189 

presents  the  first  appearance  of  a  spinal  chord,  with 
ganglions  or  nervous  centers  collected  on  it ;  that 
is  to  say,  knots  or  swellings  at  regular  intervals 
along  it,  from  which  the  nervous  fibers  run.  From 
the  fact  that  these  ganglions  are,  in  the  Articulata, 
regularly  disposed  along  the  main  line  or  chord  to 
which  they  are  attached,  it  has  been  proposed  to 
call  this  general  division  of  the  animal  kingdom 
Homogangliata,  as  being  a  name  more  truly  dis- 
tinctive than  the  older  and  familiar  one  of  Articu- 
lata. The  varied  and  deeply  interesting  class  of 
insects,  as  also  the  Arachnida  (spiders,  etc.),  and 
Crustacea  (crabs,  etc.),  are  representatives  of  this 
great  division. 

In  the  Mollusca  the  nervous  system  does  not  ad- 
vance. They  are  distinguished,  Professor  Owen 
has  remarked,  by  the  development  rather  of  the 
vegetal  series  of  organs,  or  those  which  are  con- 
cerned in  nutrition  and  reproduction.  The  nervous 
matter  is  in  them  also  collected  into  ganglions ; 
but  these  are  no  longer  symmetrically  disposed 
along  a  main  line,  but  are  unequally  scattered 
throughout  the  body.  "The  principal  mass  of 
nervous  matter  takes  the  form  of  a  thick  ring  or 
collar  surrounding  the  gullet,  whence  threads  are 
sent  off  in  an  unsymmetrical  manner  to  other  parts 
of  the  body ;  several  ganglions  being  placed 
around  the  collar,  and  others  dispersed  in  other 
parts,  so  as  best  to  supply  the  most  important 


190  THEISM. 

organs."*  From  this  unequal  distribution  of  the 
nervous  centers  in  the  races  of  this  division  of  the 
animal  creation,  it  has  been  proposed  to  apply  to 
them  the  more  definite  and  characteristic  name 
of  Heterogangliata. 

It  is  only  in  the  Vertebrata  that  we  reach  the 
fully  developed  form  of  the  nervous  system.  Here 
we  have  a  spinal  chord,  truly  so  called,  not  only 
with  ganglionic  knots  distributed  along  it,  but  ex- 
panded at  the  summit  into  a  collection  of  nervous 
matter,  which  gradually  becomes  of  main  signifi- 
cance in  the  system.  To  this  terminal  collection 
of  nervous  matter  the  general  name  of  brain  is  giv- 
en. In  all  the  classes  of  the  Vertebrata  a  brain  and 
spinal  marrow  are  present,  but  the  brain  especially 
is  extremely  diversified  in  size,  and  in  the  relation 
•of  its  parts.  It  is  composed  of  two  hemispheres, 
respectively  named  the  cerebrum  or  proper  brain, 
and  the  cerebellum  or  lesser  brain.  It  is  by  the 
full  development  of  the  former  that  the  nervous 
system  in  the  human  species  is  distinguished.  It 
extends  so  far  back  in  man  as  to  cover  the 
whole  of  the  cerebellum,  while,  in  the  lower 
"vertebrate  orders,  the  latter  becomes  always  more 
apparent,  till  in  reptiles  and  fishes  it  is  wholly 


"With  this  very  summary  description  of  the  nerv- 
ous system  in  the  animal  races  generally,  we  will 

*  GOSSK'S  Text-Book,  p.  193. 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA — ANIMAL.    191 

now  look,  for  the  sake  of  special  illustration,  a  little 
more  closely  at  its  structure  and  operations  in  man, 
in  whom  it  assumes  its  chief  interest  and  import- 
ance. 

The  nervous  matter  in  the  human  body  presents 
the  appearance  of  an  elaborate  and  intricate  trace- 
work  running  out  to  all  its  parts,  from  the  verte- 
brate column  and  encephalon.  Comparatively 
dense  and  unformed  in  the  immediate  region  of  the 
central  line  or  axis  of  the  body,  it  branches  off  into 
more  rare  and  distinct  outline  toward  the  surface 
extremities.  When  this  matter,  as  exhibited  in  the 
brain,  is  examined,  it  is  found  to  be  composed  of 
two  different  substances.  The  main  substance, 
which  is  placed  internally,  is  white-looking  and  of 
fibrous  structure.  A  coating  of  gray  matter,  vesic- 
ular in  structure,  incloses  the  other,  and  gathers 
into  large  ganglionic  masses  at  the  base,  where  it 
constitutes,  as  we  shall  see,  a  special  center  of  nerv- 
ous force.  This  twofold  material  is  found  also  in 
the  spinal  marrow,  but  in  an  inverted  relation,  the 
gray  matter  here  forming  the  interior,  and  the 
white  matter  the  exterior  mass.  The  gray  or  vesic- 
ular matter  is  supposed  to  be  the  generating 
source  of  the  nervous  energy,  the  white  or  fibrous 
matter  to  form  the  lines  of  communication  between 
the  different  parts  of  the  system. 

In  the  diversified  operation  of  man's  nervous  sys- 
tem, we  meet,  first  of  all.  with  centers  of  nervous 


192  THEISM. 

action,  strictly  corresponding  to  those  found  in  the 
lower  orders,  viz.,  simple  ganglions,  distributed 
along  the  spine,  or  at  least  chiefly  there.  But  we 
also,  as  might  be  expected,  meet  with  higher  and 
peculiar  centers  of  such  action  in  what  are  called 
the  sensory  ganglions,  collected  at  the  bass  of  the 
brain,  and  especially  in  the  cerebrum  itself.  From 
these  respective  centers  emanates  the  whole  varied 
and  wonderful  activity  of  human  life. 

To  Sir  Charles  Bell  we  are  indebted  for  the  great 
discovery  which  has  opened  up  the  whole  field  of 
nervous  operation.  He  found  that  sensation  and 
motion  are  dependent  upon  different  sets  of  nervous 
filaments.  The  sensiferous  filaments,  stretching  all 
along  the  surface  of  the  body,  are  constantly  receiv- 
ing impulses  which  they  transmit  along  the  line  to 
the  different  centers  of  nervous  action,  whence 
again  proceed  the  other  or  motor  set  of  filaments 
running  to  all  the  different  parts  of  the  body. 
These  filaments  start  from  distinct  roots  in  the  nerv- 
ous column — the  roots  of  the  former  being  in  the 
posterior,  and  those  of  the  latter  in  the  anterior, 
portions  of  that  column.  They  preserve  through- 
out their  distinct  character  and  quality,  although 
in  their  ramifications  they  become  inextricably  in- 
termingled. According  to  their  function,  the  form- 
er set  have  been  called  afferent,  as  conveying 
impressions  toward  the  center ;  the  latter  efferent, 
as  conveying  the  respondent  movement  from  the 


ORGANIC    PHENOMENA — ANIMAL.    193 

center.*  We  have  thus,  in  the  most  simple  form 
of  nervous  operation,  three  distinct  organs,  as  it 
were — the  afferent  nerve,  the  ganglion ic  center,  and 
the  efferent  nerve.  These  together  form  an  appa- 
ratus which  has  often  been  represented  by  the  an- 
alogy of  a  voltaic  battery.  The  impression  com- 
municated at  the  sensitive  surface  passes  along  the 
line  of  the  afferent  nerve  to  the  central  station, 
where  it  is  not  expended  or  thrown  away,  but,  in 
virtue  of  its  nature,  acts  upon  the  vascular  struc- 
ture of  the  ganglions,  developing  a  motive  force 
which  issues  along  the  efferent  nerve  to  the  parts 
originally  affected.  An  act  or  operation  of  sense 
always  tends  to  complete  itself  in  this  way.  The 
stimulus  passing  inward  is  reflected  to  the  sentient 
surface  whence  it  started,  quickening  there  a  move- 
ment of  closer  contact,  or,  as  it  may  be,  of  repul- 
sion toward  the  object  of  sensation.  When  we 
touch  any  thing,  we  have  thus  a  tendency  either  to 
grasp  it  more  firmly,  or  to  reject  it,  should  there 
be  any  thing  in  it  disagreeable  to  the  organs  of  sens- 
atioD.  Without  one  or  other  of  these  results  the 
sensation  has  not  completed  its  natural  round.  It 
has  fallen  short  through  its  own  original  weakness, 
or  the  weakness  of  some  of  the  organs ;  or,  as  is 
very  commonly  the  case,  in  the  ceaseless  and  com- 
plex play  of  the  system,  it  has  been  interfered  with 

*  Also  esodic,  or  ingoing  nerves ;   and    exodic,  or   outgoing 
nerves. 

9 


194  THEISM. 

by  some  opposing  influence  of  greater  power  bear- 
ing on  the  same  center  of  nervous  force. 

The  intimate  union  which  is  thus  seen  to  exist 
between  the  nervous  and  muscular  systems  is  de- 
serving of  notice.  The  action  of  the  one  always 
tends  to  pass  into  that  of  the  other.  The  two  sys- 
tems are  not  only  combined,  but  so  combined,  or 
rather  inwrought,  that  the  one  every  where  presup- 
poses and  includes  the  other. 

"We  have  been  speaking  all  along  of  sensation  as 
implied  in  the  nervous  process ;  and  so  it  is.  But, 
in  the  very  lowest  forms  of  this  process,  that  which 
we  peculiarly  mean  by  sensation  does  not  emerge. 
There  are,  in  other  words,  appropriate  ranges  of 
nervous  action  which  transact  themselves  beyond 
the  region  of  consciousness.  Among  these  are  the 
common  functions  of  organic  life — the  action  of 
the  heart,  of  the  lungs,  and  of  the  stomach.  These, 
as  well  as  sometimes  also  special  motions  of  the 
limbs,  are  found,  in  a  state  of  health,  to  proceed 
wholly  irrespective  of  any  conscious  recognition  or 
sensation  properly  so  called.  The  sense-impulses 
which  have  set  them  agoing  do  not,  as  it  were, 
awaken,  or  realize  themselves.  And  in  this  we 
may  perceive  a  special  mark  of  Divine  wisdom ; 
for  how  important  is  it  that  those  functions  upon 
which  our  daily  health  depends,  should  be  thus  se- 
cured from  the  distracting  influences  that  would  be 
otherwise  constantly  bearing  upon  them !  How 


ORGANIC  PHENOMENA  —  ANIMAL.  195 

comparatively  imperfect  and  unhappy  would  life 
be,  did  the  respirator  or  digestive  processes  inces- 
santly claim  our  attention !  As  it  is,  these  processes, 
proceeding  in  a  separate  round  by  themselves,  min- 
ister in  the  most  faithful  and  efficient  manner  to  our 
daily  maintenance  and  well-being. 

Such  simple  reflex  actions  constitute  in  man, 
however,  only  the  lowest  circle  of  nervous  opera- 
tion. And  even  in  regard  to  them  there  is  so  inti- 
mate a  relation  between  the  different  parts  of  the 
system,  that  the  processes  which  may  be,  and  in 
ordinary  cases  are,  transacted  beyond  the  region  of 
consciousness,  yet  very  readily  pass  into  it.  For, 
according  to  the  full  law  of  nervous  action,  whose 
exposition  we  owe  only  to  the  most  recent  physio- 
logical labors,  every  impression  is  represented  as 
having  a  tendency  to  pass  along  the  nerve  of  trans- 
mission upward  through  every  intermediate  posi- 
tion to  the  cerebrum  itself.*  This  tendency,  we 
have  seen,  is  not  in  many  cases  carried  out.  The 
nervous  impression  is  intercepted  at  a  lower  gan- 
glionic  center,  and  reflected  there  for  the  perform- 
ance of  various  important  functions.  Yet;  even  in 
those  cases  in  which  there  is  no  conscious  recogni- 
tion, the  relation  of  the  nerves  to  the  higher  con- 
scious center  is  so  intimate  that  some  influence  is 
probably  at  all  times  given  forth  upon  it. 

The  reflections  from  the  sensory  ganglions  at  the 

*  MOREIX'S  Psychology,  p  97. 


196  THEISM. 

base  of  the  brain  may  be  said  to  form  the  second 
range  of  nervous  action  in  man,  which,  in  its  special 
character,  is  of  the  most  important  kind.  These 
ganglions  are  the  great  seat  of  sensation.  The 
nerves  of  the  senses  terminate  in  them,  and  hence 
proceed  all  our  well-known  modes  of  sensation,  so 
various  and  exquisite.  But  while  this  range  of 
nervous  action  lies  so  completely  within  the  sphere 
of  feeling  and  consciousness,  it  is  yet  irrespective 
of  the  will.  The  responsive  movements  flow  forth 
instinctively ;  they  are  the  simple  involuntary  play 
of  sensations.  Such  automatic  movements  are  the 
winking  of  the  eye,  shuddering,  balancing  of  the 
body  to  prevent  falling,  and  many  others. 

The  highest  and  complete  range  of  nervous  action 
proceeds  from  the  cerebrum  itself.  While,  in  truth, 
the  lower  ganglionic  centers  are  so  constituted  as  to 
be  capable  of  originating  independent  ranges  of  ac- 
tion, they  are  yet  so  intimately  related  to  this  high- 
est center  as  to  be  constantly  within  its  influence. 
The  effects,  for  example,  of  intense  thought  or  of 
strong  emotion  upon  the  processes  of  organic  life 
are  familiarly  known.  It  is  deserving  of  remark, 
however,  that  this  cerebral  influence  can  only  be 
propagated  downward  after  a  certain  manner.  The 
mind  can  only  influence  directly  the  sensory  gan- 
glions, the  sensations  which  are  the  appropriate 
expression  of  their  action  again  acting  upon  the 
lower  ganglionic  centers  concerned  in  the  processes 


ORGANIC  PHENOMENA — ANIMAL.  197 

in  question.  The  idea  of  a  pleasant  taste,  for  ex- 
ample, will  make  the  mouth  water,  and  the  sensa- 
tion thus  created  will  stimulate,  through  the  infe- 
rior excito-motor  center,  the  action  of  the  stomach. 
But  the  mind  can  not  operate  directly  upon  the 
alimentary  apparatus. 

The  cerebrum,  it  is  well  known,  is  the  special 
seat  of  those  varied  ideas  and  emotions  which,  con- 
stitute what  is  peculiarly  considered  our  mental 
activity.  It  is  the  seat,  moreover,  of  that  moral 
activity  which  in  man  is  the  flower  of  existence. 
In  the  will,  as  the  only  complete  expression  of  our 
cerebral  energy,  the  whole  complex  human  life 
does  not  certainly  take  its  rise,  but  here  alone  it 
finds  its  sum  and  perfection.  What  grounds  there 
may  be  for  reckoning  in  the  cerebrum  two  distinct 
centers  of  nervous  action — an  idea-motor,  so  called 
and  described  by  Dr.  Lay  cock,*  and  one  (the  high-, 
est  of  all)  specially  volitionalf — need  not  occupy 
us  in  so  cursory  and  second-hand  a  sketch  as  this. 

We  have  presented  more  than  enough  to  evince 
the  clear  design  stamped  on  every  feature  of  man's 
nervous  system.  On  the  one  hand,  its  elaborate 
structure,  so  nicely  and  curiously  wrought,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  its  diversified  yet  never  conflicting 
action,  are  among  the  most  impressive  manifesta- 
tions of  a  wisdom  which,  shining  forth  every  where 

*  In  a  paper  read  before  the  British  Association,  1844. 
f  See  MORELL'S  Psychology,  p.  100-102. 


198  THEISM. 

in  nature,  here  shines  forth  with,  perhaps,  special 
significance  and  beauty.  It  were  a  vain  effort  to 
exalt  any  one  aspect  of  creation  above  another, 
Divine  order  being  equally  conspicuous  in  all ;  yet 
it  would  seem  that  here,  in  the  exquisite  organiza- 
tion which  we  have  been  contemplating,  Reason  is 
eminent  with  a  peculiar  luster.  Here,  standing  at 
the  summit  of  the  physical,  on  the  verge  of  that 
self-conscious  reason  which  sees  its  own  forms  re- 
flected every  where,  we  seem  to  see  the  most  per- 
fect correspondence  between  matter  and  spirit — 
between  the  order  that  merely  shows  Mind,  and  the 
mind  that  perceives  Order.  The  pious  instinct 
which,  on  a  comparatively  inadequate  view,  lifted 
the  soul  of  the  Psalmist  to  God,  here  awakens  irre- 
pressibly  in  every  reverent  heart,  "I  will -praise 
Thee :  for  I  am  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made." 


§  II— CHAPTER  VIII. 

TYPICAL    FOEMS — DIVINE    WISDOM. 

THE  general  conception  of  order  with  which  we 
set  out,  has  in  the  few  last  chapters  become  mixed 
up  with  the  more  special  conception  of  design.  The 
teleological  aspect  of  organic  phenomena  is  that 
which  most  readily  fixes  the  attention  of  the  Nat- 
ural Theologian,  as  it  is  that  which  has  hitherto 
proved  the  most  successful  key  of  discovery  in 
prosecuting  their  study.  Under  the  influence  of 
the  illustrious  Cuvier,  this  teleological  view  had  as- 
sumed such  a  prominence  in  physiology  as  almost 
to  obscure  the  more  general  view  of  a  unity  of  plan 
or  order.  Of  late,  however,  and  especially  through 
the  profound  and  laborious  researches  of  Professor 
Owen,  this  latter  view  has  begun  to  claim  renewed 
interest.  In  his  two  works,  "  On  the  Archetype 
and  Homologies  of  the  Vertebrate  Skeleton,"  and 
a  On  the  Nature  of  Limbs" — he  has  especially  shown 
its  value  and  fruitfulness  as  a  guiding  principle  of 
investigation  in  comparative  anatomy;  and  the 


200  THEISM. 

same  principle  has,  in  truth,  been  gaining  ground 
in  the  whole  region  of  physiology,  as  probably 
furnishing,  here  no  less  than  in  other  departments, 
the  deepest  and  most  pervading  key  of  explanation. 
It  is  felt  now,  at  length,  after  the  extravagance  of 
polemic  on  either  side  has  passed  away,  that  there 
is  no  necessary  contradiction  between  the  more 
special  and  the  more  comprehensive  and  yet  grand- 
er doctrine. 

"We  have  already  seen  the  numerical  relation 
which  subsists  between  the  different  parts  of  plants. 
In  the  great  divisions  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  three 
is  found  to  be  the  pervading  or  typical  number  of 
the  monocotyledonous  plants,  and  five  the  pervad- 
ing or  typical  number  of  the  dicotyledonous.  This 
numerical  unity  is  found,  on  closer  examination,  to 
be  merely  a  single  indication  of  the  typical  unity 
which,  through  the  whole  range  of  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  underlies  its  infinite  variety.  Beneath 
all  this  variety,  apparently  and  in  reality  so  bound- 
less, there  emerges  to  the  critical  gaze  an  identity 
of  form  of  the  most  interesting  and  wonderful  char- 
acter. 

The  science  which  treats  of  this  pervading  fea- 
ture of  the  organic  kingdom  has  been  termed  Mor- 
phology,* and  has  within  the  last  half- century 

*  In  so  far  as  we  know  the  term,  Morphology  was  first  made 
use  of  in  application  to  anatomy  in  the  year  1819,  by  Burdach, 
in  his  treatise  Utber  die  Aufgabe  der  Morphologic.  Leipzig  :  1819. 


TYPICAL    FORMS— DIVINE    WISDOM.      201 

drawn  the  special  attention  of  naturalists.  In  so 
far  as  it  relates  to  botany,  Professor  Schleiden  has 
devoted  one  of  the  chapters  of  his  very  attractive 
work,  The  Plant,  a  Biography,  to  the  subject.  He 
thus  describes  the  importance  of  form  to  the  plant, 
and  the  frequent  subordination  of  every  other  thing 
to  it: 

"  Whether  it  arises  from  the  essential  nature  of 
the  circumstances  or  not,  we  can  not  say,  but,  at 
least  so  far  as  appearance  goes,  the  production  of 
shape  is  so  prominent  a  point  in  the  natural  history 
of  plants,  that  all  the  rest  has  often  been  forgotten 
for  its  sake  ;  and  thus  the  study  of  form,  or  mor- 
phology, becomes  in  any  case  the  most  important 
branch  of  teaching  in  all  botany.  But  it  would 
be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  morphology  is 
merely  a  meager  enunciation  and  description  of 
forms.  It  is  also  a  scientific  question ;  it  has  to 
seek  for  the  knowledge  of  laws,  and  must,  at  least 
as  a  preliminary  step,  arrange  the  multitude  of  ap- 
pearances under  primary  points  of  view,  place  them 
according  to  rule  and  exception,  and  so  gradually 
approach  nearer  to  the  discovery  of  the  actual  laws 
of  nature."* 

The  fundamental  idea  of  morphology,  therefore, 
is  the  recognition  of  a  common  type  of  construction 
among  plants  and  animals.  In  the  case  of  the 
former,  with  which  we  are  immediately  concerned, 

*  Pp.  81,  82. 
9* 


202  THEISM. 

science,  penetrating  beneath  the  mere  diversity  of 
organs,  and  their  enumeration  and  classification, 
discerns  a  persistent  unity  of  plan  or  law,  upon 
which  the  whole  plant,  in  its  various  and  compli- 
cated structure,  is  molded.  And  it  is  remarkable 
that  this  beautiful  conception,  to  which  science 
owes  so  much,  was,  in  the  first  instance,  due  to  the 
vivid  intuition  of  a  poetic,  rather  than  the  patient 
induction  of  a  merely  scientific  mind.  It  was  to 
the  fine  and  subtle  glance  of  Goethe,  roaming 
through  nature  with  so  rich  a  perception  of  its  har- 
monies, that  typical  forms  of  structure,  in  the  vege- 
table world,  first  revealed  themselves.  His  Versuch 
die  Metamorphose  der  Pflanzen  zu  erklaren,  in  1790, 
contained  the  first  formal  exposition  of  the  doctrine 
of  typical  unity,  and  must,  therefore,  be  considered 
to  have  laid  the  basis  of  scientific  botany.  It  was 
not,  however,  till  thirty  years  later,  when  the  specu- 
lations of  Goethe  were  taken  up  by  De  Candolle, 
and  embodied  in  his  work  on  Organography,  that 
they  attracted  general  attention,  and  passed  into 
the  scientific  mind  of  Europe.  The  idea  of  the 
poet  only  then  became  the  recognized  doctrine  of 
science. 

Goethe,  drawn  to  nature  from  the  promptings  of 
its  mirrored  harmony  within  him,  carried  over,  as 
might  be  supposed,  a  somewhat  too  ideal  view  of 
unity  to  the  plant.  His  idea  of  a  typical  plant, 
"whereby  he  signified  an  ideal  plant,  the  realization 


TYPICAL    FORMS  —  DIVINE    WISDOM.      203 

of  which,  as  it  were,  nature  had  proposed  to  herself, 
and  which  she  had  only  attained  in  a  certain  de- 
gree in  the  individual  plants,"  is  considered  by 
Schleiden  to  be  deficient  in  clearness  and  grasp 
of  reality.  And  it  would  indeed  have  been  won- 
derful if  the  first  fresh  glance  of  the  poet  had  ex- 
pi  essed  with  perfect  precision  the  deep-seated  truth 
of  nature.  It  can  not  even  now  be  said  that  the 
fundamental  forms  of  vegetable  structure  have  been 
precisely  determined;  some,  with  Schleiden  him- 
self, finding  a  radical  twofoldness,  and  others  aim- 
ing to  establish  a  unity*  as  the  most  general  plan 
of  the  plant.  It  is  only  by  very  patient  and  com- 
prehensive processes  of  induction  that  the  most 
hidden  order  of  organic  nature  can  ever  be  discov- 
ered. As  Schleiden  says,  "  glorious  system  may, 
indeed,  be  thought  out  on  paper  in  the  study,  but 
these  have  no  meaning  or  importance  in  the  actual 
world.  Thus,  as  we  enter  upon  these  things,  we 
must  rather  modestly  inquire  whether  nature  is  in- 
clined to  display  her  mysteries  to  us — whether  she 
will,  in  this  or  that  individual  instance,  make  man- 
ifest what  characters  are  essential  in  their  shape ; 


*  See  a  paper  on  "  Typical  Forms"  in  the  North  British  Review, 
August  1851,  in  which  an  attempt  is  made  "to  reduce  a  plant, 
by  a  more  enlarged  conception  of  its  nature,  to  a  unity."  The 
paper,  understood  to  be  from  the  pen  of  Professor  M'Cosh  of 
Belfast,  gives  throughout  a  very  informing  and  suggestive  view 
of  the  whole  subject ;  and  we  have  been  greatly  indebted  to  it 
in  the  composition  of  this  chapter. 


204  THEISM. 

in  a  word,  what  basis  she  will  afford  us  for  the 
erection  of  our  system. 

It  will  suffice  for  our  general  purpose  to  present 
a  very  brief  sketch  of  the  now  established  reduc- 
tion of  the  plant  to  a  twofold  type  of  structure,  as 
exhibited  by  Schleiden.  The  two  representative 
organs,  to  which  all  the  others  can  be  reduced,  are 
the  stem  and  the  leaf.  The  root,  and  the  trunk 
with  its  lateral  branches,  and  these  again  with 
their  lateral  branchlets,  are  simple  modifications 
of  the  former.  All  these  are  of  "  the  same  struc- 
ture, and  tend  to  assume  the  same  form."*  "  If  a 
thousand  branches  from  the  same  tree  are  compared 
together,"  says  Lindley,  "  they  will  be  found  to  be 
formed  upon  the  same  uniform  plan,  and  to  accord 
in  every  essential  particular.  Each  branch  is  also, 
under  favorable  circumstances,  capable  of  itself 
becoming  a  separate  individual,  as  is  found  by 
cuttings,  buddings,  grafting,  and  other  horticul- 
tural processes."  Each  branch  or  branchlet,  there- 
fore, is  simply  the  plant  repeating  itself,  in  diversi- 
fied outline,  as  it  advances  in  growth — each 
containing  within  itself  the  germ  of  individual 
existence,  and  ready  to  become  an  individual 
plant  on  the  application  of  the  proper  means. 
The  term  pliyton  has  accordingly  been  given  with 
propriety  to  each  single  part. 

Upon  the  stem,  and  out  of  it,  grows  the  leaf, 

*  North  British  Review,  Augiist  1851,  p.  396. 


TYPICAL    FORMS  —  DIVINE    WISDOM.      205 

which,  in  its  turn,  is  the  undoubted  type  of  all  the 
special  organs  of  inflorescence,  the  calyx,  corolla, 
stamens,  and  pistils.  The  sepals  of  the  calyx,  and 
the  petals  of  the  corolla,  or  flower  commonly  so 
called,  are  obviously  enough  foliar  in  their  struc- 
ture. But  the  stamens  and  pistils  have  been  proved 
to  be  no  less  so,  little  as,  on  a  mere  cursory  inspec- 
tion of  them,  this  might  seem  to  be  the  case. 

The  plant,  in  its  most  complete  development,  is 
therefore  capable  of  analysis  into  two  distinct  parts 
— a  twofold  system  of  constructive  order.  The 
diversity  of  stem  and  flower  is  seen  to  flow  from 
a  typical  unity  in  each  case ;  and  some  have  car- 
ried back,  as  we  have  said,  the  whole  diversity  to 
a  radical  unity  in  the  stem.  If  we  can  not  con- 
template the  special  relations  and  uses  of  different 
organs  of  the  plant  without  recognizing  in  them 
the  clear  marks  of  design,  it  is  no  less  impossible, 
surety,  to  contemplate  this  wonderful  unity  of  or- 
ganization— this  plan  of  structure,  underlying  the 
whole  vegetable  creation — without  the  conception 
of  Mind  forcing  itself  irrepressibly  upon  us. 

But  this  conclusion  is  still  more  strongly  en- 
forced by  the  most  general  glance  at  the  result  of 
Professor  Owen's  researches  in  comparative  anat- 
omy. The  labors  of  this  great  investigator  have 
opened  up  a  new  field  of  interest  and  significance 
in  anatomical  science.  Carrying  along  with  him 
the  principles  and  conclusions  of  Cuvier,  he  soon 


206  THEISM. 

found  that  their  very  force  impelled  him  forward 
to  a  more  profound  and  comprehensive  principle 
of  discovery,  which,  while  it  had  been  perverted  by 
the*  arbitrariness  of  previous  theorizers,  is  yet  of 
incalculable  value  and  importance.  The  simple 
fact  of  corresponding  bones  in  different  species, 
freely  recognized  by  former  anatomists,  became 
significant  to  him  of  a  great  doctrine  of  homology, 
running  through  the  whole  of  the  vertebrate  skele- 
ton. By  the  term  homology  he  expresses  the  unity 
or  identity  of  character  between  the  bones  so  an- 
swering to  one  another  in  different  animals.  The 
bones  themselves  he  calls  "  homologues,"  in  con- 
tradistinction to  "  analogues,"  which  he  applies  to 
parts  performing  the  same  function ;  whereas  ho- 
mologous parts,  identical  in  character,  may  exhibit 
every  variety  of  form  and  function — are  the  same 
organs,  in  fact,  under  whatever  change  of  circum- 
stances. Thus  the  fore  limbs  of  a  quadruped,  the 
wings  of  a  bird,  the  pectoral  fins  of  a  fish,  and  the 
arms  of  man,  are  respectively  homologous,  because 
they  are  really  the  same  organs,  only  differently 
modified ;  while  again  the  wings  of  Draco  volans 
are  merely  analogous  to  the  wings  of  a  bird  ;*  each 
organ  performing  the  same  function,  but  being 
wholly  different  in  structure. 

Throughout  the  vertebrate  skeleton — from  that 
of  the  fish,  the  reptile,  and  bird,  to  that  of  the 

*  Quarterly  Review,  June  1853,  p.  72. 


TYPICAL    FORMS  —  DIVINE    WISDOM.      207 

mammal — from  the  cetaceans  up  to  man — Pro- 
fessor Owen  lias  demonstrated  that  there  are  no 
fewer  than  seventy  of  such  homologous  bones, 
which  may  be  clearly  traced,  showing  the  uniform 
plan,  or  archetypal  model,  upon  which  the  whole 
vertebrate  races  have  been  formed.  This  verte- 
brate archetype  has  been  figured  by  him  ;  and,  in 
connection  with  the  respective  type-skeletons  of 
the  fish,  the  reptile,  the  bird,  and  the  beast,  is  said 
to  constitute  a  perfect  anatomical  study.  With 
the  details  of  the  subject  we  feel  ourselves  incom- 
petent to  meddle ;  but  the  great  conclusion  is  one 
which  claims  our  earnest  attention — the  fact, 
namely,  of  the  demonstrated  unity  of  constructive 
plan  underlying  all  the  singular  diversity  of  the 
vertebrate  form.  What  a  pregnant  fact  is  this ! 
and  how  vast  a  scheme  of  order  does  it  open  up  in 
the  animal  creation  !  "  If  there  be,"  says  Professor 
Sedgwick,  "  an  archetype  in  the  vertebrate  division 
of  animated  nature,  we  may  well  ask  whether  there 
may  not  be  a  more  general  archetype  that  runs 
through  the  whole  kingdom  of  the  living  world. 
In  a  certain  sense  there  is.  All  animals,  if  we  ex- 
cept the  Kadiata,  which  come  close  to  a  vegetable 
type,  are  bilateral  and  symmetrical,*  have  double 
organs  of  sense,  and  have  a  nervous  and  vascular 
system,  with  many  parts  in  very  near  homology, 

*  This  statement  regarding   equilateral  symmetry  must  be 
received  with  some  limitations. 


208  THEISM. 

even  when  we  put  side  by  side,  for  comparison, 
the  animal  forms  taken  from  the  opposite  extreme 
of  nature's  scale.  And  even  in  the  Radiata,  where 
we,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  lose  all  traces  of  the  ver- 
tebrate type,  on  a  better  examination  many  of  the 
genera  are  proved  still  to  be  bilateral  and  symmet- 
rical." 

There  is  in  this  grand  conception  of  typical  order 
a  significance  for  our  sxibject  in  some  respects  quite 
peculiar.  Even  if  it  were  the  case,  therefore,  that 
the  teleological  principle  of  Cuvier  suffered  any 
abatement  of  its  luster  (which,  according  to  a  just 
view,  it  is  yet  far  from  doing)  from  the  promulga- 
tion of  this  more  comprehensive  principle,  the  the- 
istic  argument  would  still  be  far  from  sustaining 
any  loss.  It  gains,  on  the  contrary,  more  than  by 
any  possibility  it  could  lose.  As  if  the  homage 
which  science  had  already  from  all  quarters  ren- 
dered to  it  were  not  enough,  this  latest  advance  of 
physiology  has  returned  laden  with  an  offering  of 
most  precious  and  conclusive  meaning. 

The  essential  question  of  Theism,  we  formerly 
saw,  resolved  itself  into  one  regarding  the  rightful 
relation  of  man's  reason  to  the  world  at  large.  Is 
this  reason  entitled  to  bring  the  manifold  life  of 
nature  within  its  own  forms,  to  embrace  the  cosmi- 
cal  vastness  in  its  own  mirror  ?  We  found  that, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  is  and  must  be  so  enti- 
tled, as  the  very  condition  of  science  or  of  truth  at 


TYPICAL    FORMS  —  DIVINE    WISDOM.      209 

all.  Eeason  is  not  merely  a  growth  of  nature,  but 
truly  an  emanation  from  the  Divine  Source  of  na- 
ture, and  therefore  validly  brings  all  nature  with- 
in its  laws.  Now,  looking  at  these  latest  discov- 
eries of  physiological  science,  are  they  not  found  to 
bear  an  emphatic  testimony  to  this  fundamental 
position?  For  what  is  the  typical  order  recog- 
nized as  pervading  creation  but  the  signal  expres- 
sion of  a  reason  allied  to  man's,  and  yet  above  it  ? 
What  is  the  evidence  of  an  ideal  archetype  for  the 
world,  or  any  part  of  it,  but  the  special  evidence  of 
a  Mind  subsisting  apart  from  the  world,  and  ante- 
cedent to  it  ?  For  it  is  clear  that  such  an  arche- 
type could  never  have  existed — such  a  pattern 
could  never  have  been  stamped  on  creation — so 
deeply  inlaid  that  we  are  only  now  discovering  it 
— without  a  Mind  to  conceive  and  plan  it.  In  the 
language  of  Professor  Owen — language  of  the  high- 
est interest  for  our  subject — "  The  recognition  of 
an  ideal  exemplar  for  the  vertebrated  animals, 
proves  that  the  knowledge  of  such  a  being  as  man 
must  have  existed  before  man  appeared.  For  the 
Divine  Mind  which  planned  the  archetype  also  fore- 
knew all  its  modifications.  The  archetypal  idea 
was  manifested  in  the  flesh,  under  divers  modifi- 
cations, upon  this  planet,  long  prior  to  the  exist- 
ence of  those  animal  species  that  actually  exemplify 
it.  To  what  natural  or  secondary  causes  the  order- 
ly succession  and  progression  of  such  organic  phe- 


210  THEISM. 

nomena  may  have  been  committed,  we  are  as  yet 
ignorant.  But  if,  without  derogation  to  the  Divine 
Power,  we  may  conceive  the  existence  of  such  min- 
isters, and  personify  them  by  the  term  Nature,  we 
learn,  from  the  past  history  of  our  globe,  that  she 
has  advanced  with  slow  and  stately  steps,  guided 
by  the  archetypal  light  amid  the  wreck  of  worlds 
— from  the  first  embodiment  of  the  vertebrate  idea, 
under  its  old  ichthyic  vestment,  until  it  became  ar- 
ranged in  the  glorious  garb  of  the  human  form." 

And  here  appropriately  our  evidence  for  the 
special  fact  of  the  Divine  wisdom  may  be  said  to 
culminate.  Speaking  to  us  every  where  in  the  laws 
of  nature — in  the  special  ends  of  organic  functions 
— it  seems  in  these  last  chapters  to  rise  before  us 
with  a  clear  and  vivid  force  of  the  most  irresistible 
kind.  In  all  the  intricate  diversity,  and  yet  vast 
archetypal  unity  of  organic  life,  we  seem  to  see  with 
a  brightness,  undimmed  by  intervening  medium, 
the  impress  of  a  Wisdom  as  grand  in  simplicity  as 
it  is  boundless  in  fertility.* 

*  The  evidence  which  this  archetypal  order  or  unity  of  plan 
in  creation  furnishes  of  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Being,  is,  more- 
over, deserving  of  notice.  Here,  too,  the  language  of  Professor 
Owen  is  expressive  of  that  sound  Christian  philosophy,  which 
in  him.  as  in  so  many  of  the  highest  minds  of  our  country,  is 
found  in  beautiful  unison  with  the  most  eminent  scientific  at- 
tainments. "  The  evidence,"  he  snys,  "  of  unity  of  plan  in  the 
structure  of  animals,  testifies  to  the  oneness  of  their  Creator,  as 
the  modifications  of  the  plan  for  the  different  modes  of  life  illus- 
trate the  bet  eficence  of  the  Designer," 


§  IL— CHAPTER  IX. 

MENTAL     ORDER. 

IN  advancing  to  this  further  and  higher  branch 
of  our  illustrative  evidence,  we  do  not  consider  it 
necessary  to  enter  into  any  formal  proof  of  mind  as 
a  substance  essentially  distinct  from  matter.  That 
it  is  so  distinct  has  been  assumed  in  the  whole 
course  of  our  preliminary  reasoning,  and  quite  war- 
rantably  so.  For,  to  say  the  least,  mind  is  as  much 
entitled,  apart  from  proof,  to  be  held  a  distinct  re- 
ality as  matter.  Nay,  of  the  two,  there  can  not  be 
any  doubt  to  the  genuine  thinker  which  is  the  real, 
primary  and  constitutive  element  of  knowledge  : 
and  for  the  materialist,  therefore,  to  demand  a  proof 
of  the  separate  existence  of  mind,  and  for  the  phi- 
losopher or  theologian  to  grant  him  the  validity  of 
this  demand,  is  simply  among  the  absurdities  winch 
have  sprung  out  of  the  degradation  both  of  philos- 
ophy and  theology.*  The  right  of  question,  the 

*  The  assumption  that  mind  is  nothing  else  than  a  material 
functioio,  and  that  the  science  of  mind  is  only  the  highest  range 


212  THEISM. 

burden  of  proof,  lies  plainly  all  the  other  way ; 
matter  per  se,  nature  independently  of  mind,  being, 
according  to  our  whole  reasoning,  as  well  as  accord- 
ing to  all  true  philosophy,  the  simply  inconceivable 
and  inexplicable. 

It  is  only  the  fact  of  mind,  the  reality  of  a  ra- 
tional consciousness  in  man,  which  at  once  gives 
occasion  to  the  theistic  problem,  and  forms  the 
condition  of  its  solution.  It  is  only  to  reason  that 
the  question  could  ever  arise,  Is  there  a  God  ?  It 
is  only  reason  that  could  ever  originate  an  answer 
to  this  question.  Mind,  therefore,  in  its  full  and 
comprehensive  sense — the  sense  in  which  we  made 
such  frequent  use  of  it  in  our  first  chapters — is  an 
element  of  wholly  peculiar  significance  for  our  ar- 
gument. It  is  the  condition  of  it  from  the  begin- 
ning. Within  the  mental  or  rational  sphere  alone 
does  the  argument  find  a  footing  ;  and  within  this 

of  the  general  science  of  physiology,  is  one  among  the  many 
specimens  of  the  thoroiighly  unphilosophic  procedure  which 
characterizes  Positivism.  The  whole  tone  and  reasoning  of  M. 
Comte  on  this  subject  (Philosophic  Positive,  tome  ii.  p.  7 66  et 
seq.)  are  in  fact  ignorantly  arrogant  to  such  a  degree  as  to  need 
no  refutation.  His  followers  in  this  country  have  expressly  re- 
pudiated his  confusion  of  psychology  with  physiology  as  merely 
one  of  its  branches  Vide  Mr.  MILL'S  Logic,  vol.  ii.  pp.  422,  423, 
and  Mr.  LEWES'  Exposition  of  Positivism,  p.  212. 

If  any  one  desires  to  see  the  degraded  and  unintelligible  sub- 
stitute which,  under  the  name  of  "  a  New  Cerebral  Theory,"  M. 
Comte  would  give  us,  in  place  of  our  mental  philosophy,  let  him 
consult  the  statement  of  this  theoiy,  in  the  Politique  Positive 
or  in  the  concluding  section  of  the  first  part  of  Mr.  Lewes'  vol- 


MENTAL    ORDEK.  213 

sphere  alone,  as  we  shall  afterward  see,  does  it 
find  its  completion.  It  goes  forth  into  the  world 
of  phenomena  every  where,  seeking  illustration 
and  confirmation ;  but  the  rational  human  spirit, 
the  *oi>s,  which  is  one  and  abiding  amid  all  variety 
and  fluctuation  of  phenomena,  is  alone  the  home 
of  its  birth,  and  equally  of  its  full  maturity  and 
strength. 

This  radical  and  distinctive  importance  of  mind 
must  not  for  a  moment  be  overlooked  in  the  course 
of  our  evidence.  But  mind  also  presents  itself  to 
us  in  another  point  of  view.  In  its  complex  and 
various  manifestations,  it  furnishes  also  an  illustra- 
tive contribution  to  our  argument.  It  is  not  only, 
according  to  its  fundamental  theistic  meaning,  the 
essential  correlate  and  condition  of  order  every 
where,  but  is  itself,  viewed  objective!}7,  in  its  mani- 
fold expressions,  an  illustration  of  order  of  the 
most  interesting  and  impressive  kind.  Mental 
phenomena  bring  their  own  appropriate  testimony 
to  the  Divine  wisdom,  while  their  specialty,  be- 
yond all  mere  material  facts,  enables  us  for  the  first 
time  to  trace  in  an  inductive  manner  the  Divine 
goodness. 

The  field  of  theistic  illustration  afforded  by 
mental  phenomena  has  not,  indeed,  been  very 
much  frequented  by  natural  theologians.  Lord 
Brougham,  in  his  discourse  on  Natural  Theology, 
adverted  to  this  neglect,  and  so  far  took  up  the 


214  THEISM. 

subject  in  one  of  the  sections  of  that  work.  But 
at  the  same  time  he  has  done  little  really  to  rescue 
it  from  the  neglect  of  which  he  complained  ;  and 
it  may  be  doubted,  from  his  partial  treatment  of  it, 
whether  he  fully  understood  its  character  and  import- 
ance. Dr.  Chalmers,  in  His  Natural  Theology,  has 
dealt  more  adequately  with  certain  parts  of  our 
mental  constitution  in  their  theistic  interpretation  ; 
but  he  has  left  other  parts  of  it,  equally  significant, 
wholly  untouched. 

The  truth  is,  that  there  is  peculiar  difficulty  in 
dealing  with  mental  phenomena  for  our  purpose. 
They  are  at  once  so  confluent  and  subtle  in  them- 
selves, and  so  encompassed  with  debate  and  uncer- 
tainty, arising  out  of  the  ceaseless  polemic  of 
philosophy,  that  the  theologian  has  naturally  sought 
for  illustrations  of  his  argument  in  a  less  difficult 
and  fluctuating  class  of  phenomena.  At  the  same 
time,  the  very  character  of  mental  phenomena,  in 
their  higher  complicacy  and  refinement,  only  ren- 
ders them  the  more  richly  fitted  to  display  the 
Divine  perfections,  in  so  far  as  we  can  truly  seize 
and  represent  them.  The  exquisite  varieties  of 
sensation,  the  marvelous  structure  of  thought,  the 
glorious  workings  of  imagination,  the  infinite  dis- 
play of  emotion,  and  the  profound  depths  of 
passion,  all  speak  with  the  most  eloquent  utterance 
of  the  Divine  wisdom  and  beneficence. 

In  the  remaining  chapters  of  this  section,  we  en- 


MENTAL    ORDER.  215 

deavor  to  bring  into  view  some  of  the  theistic 
meaning,  which  may  be  every  where  traced  in 
mental  phenomena.  The  divisions  which  have 
been  commonly  made  of  these  phenomena  into 
those  of  sensation,  cognition,  and  emotion,  will 
successively  engage  us.  We  accept  these  divisions 
as  serving  sufficiently  to  characterize  the  complexi- 
ty of  our  mental  life,  apart  from  those  higher 
rational  elements  which  afterward,  according  to 
our  plan,  receive  attention  by  themselves;  and 
while  our  treatment,  no  less  than  that  of  the  writ- 
ers of  which  we  have  spoken,  must  be  here  very 
inadequate,  it  may  yet  conclude  a  sufficiently  com- 
prehensive survey  of  the  whole  field,  as  it  presents 
itself,  in  such  rich  diversities  of  aspect,  for  inspec- 
tion. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  X. 

SENSATION  —  DIVINE     GOODNESS. 

THE  phenomena  of  sensation  form  in  all  classes 
the  lowest  range  of  mental  life,  while  in  many  of 
the  inferior  races  this  life  reaches  no  further.  There 
are  some,  indeed,  to  whom  it  may  seem  strange  to 
speak  of  mind  expressed  in  mere  sensation.  But 
we  have  no  other  name  by  which  to  denote  that 
higher  element  or  presence  beyond  mere  organic 
life,  which  sense,  even  in  its  lowest  stages,  implies. 
That  which  feels  is  every  where  something  more 
than  that  which  merely  lives.  Sense  is  only  such 
in  virtue  of  a  sentient  subject,  which  we  can  only 
conceive  intelligibly,  even  in  the  brute  creation,  as 
the  dim,  crude,  and  frequently  unawakened  pres- 
ence of  mind.  It  is  necessary,  at  the  same  time, 
that  we  carefully  preserve  the  distinction  of  mind, 
as  possessed  by  man,  in  its  fully-expressed  reality 
of  reason.  Any  doubt  on  this  point  would  leave 
our  argument,  or  indeed  any  theistic  argument,  in 


SENSATION  —  DIVINE    GOODNESS.     217 

a  sonawehat  hopeless  state  of  confusion  and  uncer- 
tainty. 

With  this  explanation,  a  mental  presence  is  to  be 
held  as  every  where  manifested  in  sensation.  With 
every  sensitive  act  there  is  ever,  according  to  Sir 
William  Hamilton,*  a  distinct  forthputting  of 
mental  activity.  A  certain  attitude  of  attention, 
blind  as  it  may  be,  is  necessary  to  constitute  such 
an  act ;  and  hence  it  happens  that,  when  attention 
is  wholly  absorbed,  the  mental  life  otherwise  wholly 
engrossed,  we  can  sustain  the  most  severe  bodily 
injuries  without  any  feeling  of  pain. 

Sensations  admit  of  an  obvious  classification  in 
relation  to  the  different  organs  on  which  they 
depend.  In  man  they  are  commonly  reckoned  in 
a  fivefold  series,  as  the  sensations  of  taste,  smell, 
touch,  hearing,  and  sight.  It  is,  nevertheless,  now 
almost  universally  admitted  that  this  classification 
is  not  complete.  Dr.  T.  Brown  contended  for  a 
sixth  sense,  under  the  name  of  the  muscular  sense, 
to  which  he  traced  various  feelings  generally 
ascribed  to  touch ;  and  it  can  not  be  doubted  that 
there  is  a  separate  range  of  sensations  of  which  our 
muscular  frame  is  the  appropriate  organ.  As  this 
frame  is  tense  or  relaxed,  as  it  moves  rhythmically 
or  convulsively  (in  shuddering,  for  example),  or 
again,  as  it  is  vigorous  or  exhausted,  it  gives  forth 
various  impressions  which  enter  into  the  sensory 

*  Vide  Appendix  to  Reid's  Works,  p.  878. 
10 


218  THEISM. 

system,  and  form  a  large  share  of  our  daily  sensa- 
tional experience.  In  the  very  same  manner  the 
different  affections  flowing  from  the  constant  pro- 
cesses of  vegetative  life — those,  for  example,  aris- 
ing from  a  state  of  healthiness  or  disease,  vigor  or 
debility — and  other  affections  still  less  defined,  may 
very  well  claim  to  be  ranked  as  distinct  orders  of 
sensations.  It  can  not  be  doubted  that  the  feelings 
connected  with  such  states  of  the  bodily  organiza- 
tion, however  diffused,  make  a  large  portion  of  the 
common  consciousness,  and  of  the  happiness  or 
misery  of  our  common  mental  existence.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  our  purpose,  however,  to  determine 
such  matters  of  purely  psychological  classification. 

Of  the  five  more  specially  recognized  senses, 
taste  and  smell  are  rightly  grouped  by  themselves ; 
and  again,  hearing  and  sight  stand  in  a  similar 
group.  Touch  stands  by  itself,  as  in  some  respects 
the  most  important  and  necessary  of  all  our 
senses. 

Taste  and  smell  are  intimately  allied :  they  both 
convey  impressions  derived  from  the  chemical 
qualities  of  bodies,  the  one  in  the  fluid  (substances 
tasted  must  be  either  naturally  fluid;  or  must  be 
dissolved  by  the  saliva),  the  other  in  the  gaseous 
state.  They  are  chiefly  instrumental  as  subserv- 
ing the  more  physical  wants  of  existence;  and 
smell,  from  its  subservience  in  this  point  of  view, 
is  well  known  to  reach  a  much  more  intenst  and 


SENSATION  —  DIVINE    GOODNESS.      219 

powerful  development  in  some  of  the  lower  animals 
than  in  man. 

The  senses  of  sight  and  hearing  are  more  intel- 
lectual in  their  character  and  relations  than  the 
former.  They  carry  the  mind  more  outward,  fixing 
it  more  upon  the  object  awakening  its  regard.  The 
former,  as  has  been  often  pointed  out,  is  more  im- 
mediately related  to  the  cognitive,  the  latter  to  the 
emotional  powers,  a  relation  whicfh  is  thus  curiously 
contrasted  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Mr.  Morell  from 
Erdmann's  Psychologische  Briefe.  "The  one,"  says 
Erdmann,  "is  the  clearest,  the  other  is  the  deepest 
of  the  senses.  The  same  contrast  shows  itself  in 
the  objects  by  which  these  organs  are  severally 
affected.  In  the  former  case  the  object  shows  its 
outward  surface,  as  it  exists  unmoved  in  space ;  in 
the  latter  case  it  betrays,  by  means  of  the  tone  it 
gives  forth,  what  exists  within  and  under  the  sur- 
face. It  is  not  the  form  and  color  of  an  object 
which  tells  what  it  is,  but  its  sound.  For  that 
reason  the  sight  of  a  thing  does  Hot  penetrate  so 
much  to  the  heart,  it  only  tells  us  what  is  its  ap- 
pearance. On  the  other  hand,  the  tone  moves  us ; 
it  tells  us  how  the  thing  or  the  person  stands  to  the 
heart  itself.  On  that  account  we  can  easily  explain 
the  phenomena  so  often  observed,  that  deafness  is 
hard  and  distrustful,  while  blindness  is  mild  and 
confiding."* 

*  Psychology,  pp.  113,  114. 


220  THEISM. 

The  sense  of  touch  is  peculiar  in  its  range  and 
the  diversity  of  its  applications.  This  extent  and 
variety  of  operation  constitute  its  importance  and 
rank  in  comparison  with  the  other  senses ;  for,  in 
point  of  mere  intellectual  dignity  and  refinement, 
it  must  certainly  be  classed  below  the  sense  of 
vision.  It  is  the  same  characteristic  which  has  led 
to  that  subdivision  of  its  functions  to  which  Dr.  T. 
Brown  led  the  way,  many  separating  with  him  the 
more  objective  phenomena  of  the  sense,  through 
which  we  are  supposed  to  come  to  a  clear  knowl- 
edge of  the  primary  qualities  of  matter — extension, 
solidity,  hardness,  etc. — from  the  more  subjective 
phenomena,  or  those  of  feeling,  strictly  so  called ; 
and  others  ranging  in  a  farther  separate  class  the 
sensations  of  temperature,  usually  considered  to 
form  merely  a  variety  of  those  of  touch. 

In  the  operation  of  these  different  senses,  the 
unerring  accuracy  with  which  they  guide  the 
inferior  orders  in  the  selection  of  fitting  nourish- 
ment, and  their  rich  and  varying,  yet  so  nicely- 
discriminating  flow  in  man,  we  see  the  bright 
manifestations  of  the  same  provident  wisdom  which 
we  have  hitherto  been  tracing.  Marvelously  com- 
plex and  beautiful  as  are  the  higher  organs  of  hear- 
ing and  sight,  they  must  yet  surely  yield  in  endless 
intricacy  of  harmonious  adjustment  to  the  crowd- 
ing sensations  to  which  they  minister.  If  the  hand  of 
a  transcendent  Wisdom  be  visible  in  the  arrangements 


SENSATION — DIVINE    GOODNESS.      221 

of  the  one,  must  it  not  be  also  impressively  recog- 
nized in  the  yet  subtler  arrangements  of  the  other  ? 

But  it  is  not  for  the  evidence  of  design,  that  may 
beyond  doubt  be  here  equally  traced,  that  these 
phenomena  possess  a  special  interest  for  the  Theist. 
Their  peculiar  significance  consists  not  in  the  fact 
that  in  them  also  we  see  wisdom,  but  that  in  them, 
for  the  first  time,  we  perceive  goodness.  In  this 
new  reality  of  creation  we  have  a  new  testimony 
to  the  Creator.  With  the  dawn  of  sense,  we  have 
the  kindling  of  the  light  of  love  around  the  great 
First  Cause.  "We  behold  no  longer  a  merely  ex- 
quisite mechanism,  nor  even  the  elaborately  beau- 
tiful action  of  unconscious  life,  but  the  yet  higher 
and  richer  workings  of  sentient  being.  In  these 
workings  there  emerges  for  the  first  time  the  fact 
of  enjoyment,  and  this  fact  in  nature  it  is  which 
alone  enables  us  inductively  to  find  goodness  in 
God.  Apart  from  this  fact,  Paley  has  said,  with 
his  wonted  brief  simplicity,  "the  attribute  has  no 
object,  the  term  has  no  meaning."  It  is  only  the 
presence  of  a  sentient  subject  in  organism  which 
enables  us  to  pronounce  that  the  tendency  of  its 
design  is  beneficial.  It  is  only  its  relation  to  con- 
sciousness which  makes  any  thing  good  or  evil. 

It  becomes,  then,  for  the  theistic  inference,  a 
most  vital  and  momentous  question — Is  enjoyment 
really  the  normal  expression  of  sensation  ?  Is 
happiness  the  prevailing  response  of  consciousness? 


222  THEISM. 

Is  it,  in  short," li  a  happy  world  after  all?"  What 
is  the  testimony  which  sentient  life,  in  its  manifold 
forms,  utters  on  this  great  point  ?  The  true  bear- 
ing of  the  question  is  to  be  carefully  observed.  It 
is  not  at  all  a  question  implying  the  non-existence 
of  evil ;  on  the  contrary,  it  proceeds  plainly  on  the 
supposition  of  evil  being  an  undoubted  reality. 
The  truth  is,  that  with  the  fact  of  pleasure,  given 
in  sensation,  there  emerges  so  inseparably  the  fact 
of  pain — the  one  so  directly  suggests  the  other — 
that  the  induction  as  to  the  Divine  goodness  as- 
sumes, from  the  very  first,  a  directly  polemical  as- 
pect. It  becomes  a  question  in  a  different  sense 
from  the  truth  of  the  Divine  power  or  wisdom ; 
and  we  are  so  far  from  wishing  to  hide  from  view 
the  obvious  difficulty  which  thus  meets  us,  that  we 
frankly  admit  it  in  our  very  mode  of  stating  the 
matter.  While  acknowledging  the  difficulty,  how- 
ever, we  reserve  it,  according  to  the  well-devised 
plan  of  our  subject,  for  separate  and  special  treat- 
ment. Pain  is  present  along  with  pleasure — evil 
along  with  good ;  and  it  will  be  our  subsequent 
aim  to  consider  the  solution  of  which  this  fact  is 
capable.  In  the  mean  time,  we  simply  inquire,  Is 
not  happiness  present  to  such  a  degree  in  creation 
as  to  lead  us  to  infer  in  the  Creator  a  disposition  to 
bestow  happiness?  Is  not  good  so  apparent  in 
nature  as  to  declare  that  its  Author  is  good  ?  Or — 
to  place  the  matter  before  us  in  the  strictly  special 


SENSATION  —  DIVINE    GOODNESS.     223 

form  in  winch  it  has  occurred  in  this  chapter — is 
not  the  normal  action  of  sense,  enjoyment? 

To  the  question  thus  put  we  can  only  imagine 
one  answer.  When,  with  a  clear  mind  and  heart, 
we  turn  to  nature,  we  see  happiness  expressing 
itself  in  endlessly  multiplied  forms.  The  play  of 
conscious  life  is  every  where  around  us,  and  it  is 
the  play  of  enjoyment.  Every  one  is  familiar  with 
the  felicitous  passage  of  Paley,  descriptive  of  this 
prevailing  happiness  of  sentient  existence ;  and 
whatever  shadows  may  lie  in  the  background — ob- 
vious objections  to  which  we  have  already  adverted 
— there  can  not  well  be  any  dispute  as  to  the  truth 
as  well  as  felicity  of  the  Archdeacon's  picture  on 
the  positive  side.  It  can  not  be  rationally  doubted 
that  pleasure  is  the  appropriate  correlative  of  sen- 
sation every  where.  The  natural  meaning  of  feel- 
ing, so  to  speak,  is  happiness.  Feeling  is  no  doubt 
also  liable  to  be  pain  ;  but — and  this  alone  is  the 
point  of  our  present  argument — pain  is  the  excep- 
tion, pleasure  the  rule.  If  a  nerve  be  lacerated,  it 
will  unquestionably  give  forth  a  sensation  of  pain ; 
but  the  expression  of  the  nervous  system  is  never- 
theless, in  all  animals,  according  to  its  originally 
constituted  working- — or  in  other  words,  when  not 
interfered  with — pleasure.  And  this  is  what  we  in- 
tend by  speaking  of  the  normal  action  of  sensation 
as  pleasurable.  The  constitution  of  animal  life  is 
such  that  it  yields,  in  harmonious  operation,  enjoy- 


224  THEISM. 

ment.  The  design,  therefore,  of  that  constitution 
is  clearly  benevolent,  even  if  it  were,  in  the  actual 
circumstances  of  the  case,  more  liable  to  interference 
than  it  is.  In  truth,  however,  it  is  not  only  designed 
to  evolve  happiness,  but  so  secured  in  its  working 
that  the  design  is  for  the  most  part  effectually  ac- 
complished. 

Happiness  ascends  million-voiced  to  the  great 
Source  of  Being  day  by  day.  It  is  a  living,  if  often 
inarticulate  speech,  diffused  through  creation,  and 
warming  it  every  where  with  the  breath  of  thanks- 
giving. It  is  a  song  of  natural  piety  which  is  new 
every  morning,  and  fails  not  every  evening,  although 
many  jars  mingle  in  the  wide-toned  benedicite. 
These  mar  the  harmony  of  the  song,  but  still  it 
goes  upward,  a  pervading  strain  of  happiness,  in 
testimony  of  the  Love  from  which  it  comes,  and  in 
which  alone  it  lives. 


§   II— CHAPTER  XI. 

INS!  INCT. 

BEFORE  passing  onward  in  our  inductive  psycho- 
logical survey,  we  are  met  by  a  question  of  special 
theistic  interest,  in  regard  to  the  display  of  mind 
in  certain  of  the  lower  animals.  We  do  not  here, 
indeed,  propose  to  meddle  with  the  general  ques- 
tion of  animal  mind,  which  presents  so  many  ap- 
parently insuperable  difficulties  ;  but  that  peculiar 
manifestation  of  intelligence,  in  many  of  the  lower 
creation,  which  has  received  the  name  of  "  Instinct," 
and  which  has  been  supposed  to  bear  with  a  very 
conclusive  effect  upon  our  subject,  demands  from 
us  a  passing  notice. 

The  cell-making  of  the  bee,  and  the  nest-building 
of  the  bird,  are  familiar  examples  of  instinct.  The 
mental  power,  displayed  by  the  animal  in  these 
operations,  appear  to  be  wholly  singular.  In  ordi- 
nary cases,  mind  works  only  according  to  instruc- 
tion and  experience:  it  is  dependent  on  education, 
and  increases  with  exercise.  In  these  and  other 
similar  cases  it  operates,  in  the  language  of  Paley, 
10* 


226  THEISM. 

"prior  to  experience,  and  independent  of  instruc- 
tion." Nor  is  this  all.  The  definition  of  Paley — 
broadly  as  it  demarcates  the  mode  of  instinct  from 
that  of  mind  in.  the  ordinary  sense — is  considered 
by  Lord  Brougham  to  fail  in  expressing  the  most 
essential  element  of  distinction  between  the  two; 
viz.,  the  conscious  intention  or  foresight  which 
is  ever  present  in  the  one  case  in  any  effort  of 
higher  constructiveness,  but  which,  in  many  cases 
of  instinct,  it  seems  wholly  impossible  to  conceive 
present.  The  bee  or  the  bird,  for  example,  not 
only  works  toward  the  most  beautiful  results — 
builds  the  one  its  cell,  <and  the  other  its  nest — with 
a  skill  and  precision  which  human  effort  only  ap- 
proaches at  a  distance — neither  of  them  having 
ever  seen  a  cell  or  a  nest  before,  or  having  ever 
previously  tried  to  make  one  ;  but,  in  many  cases, 
there  seems  also,  as  the  most  wonderful  fact  of  all, 
the  certain  absence  of  any  foresight  of  the  end  to- 
ward which  all  this  animal  ingenuity  is  expended. 
In  the  case  of  the  bee,  as  his  lordship  has  well  put 
it  in  his  discussion  with  Lord  Althorpe,  in  the  first 
of  his  dialogues,  "  I  see  her  doing  certain  things 
which  are  manifestly  to  produce  an  effect  she  can 
know  nothing  about — for  example,  making  a  cell, 
and  furnishing  it  with  carpets  and  with  liquid,  fit 
to  hold  and  to  cherish  safely  a  tender  grub,  and 
knowing  nothing,  of  course,  about  grubs,  or  that 
any  grub  is  ever  to  come,  or  that  any  such  use 


INSTINCT.  227 

perhaps  any  use  at  all,  is  ever  to  be  made  of  the 
work  she  is  about.  Indeed,  I  see  another  insect — 
the  solitary  wasp — bring  a  given  number  of  small 
grubs,  and  deposit  them  in  a  hole  which  she  has 
made  over  her  egg,  just  grubs  enough  to  maintain 
the  worm  that  egg  will  produce  when  hatched — 
and  yet  this  wasp  never  saw  an  egg  produce  a  worm, 
nor  ever  saw  a  worm — nay,  is  to  be  dead  long  be- 
fore the  worm  can  be  in  existence ;  and,  moreover, 
she  never  has  in  any  way  tasted  or  used  these 
grubs,  or  used  the  hole  she  made,  except  for  the 
prospective  benefit  of  the  unknown  worm  she  is 
never  to  see.  In  all  these  cases,  then,  the  animal 
works  positively  without  knowledge,  and  in  the 
dark.  She  also  works  without  designing  any  thing, 
and  yet  she  works  to  a  certain  defined  and  impor- 
tant purpose."* 

It  is,  of  course  impossible  to  pronounce  so  decid- 
edly as  to  the  absence  of  design,  on  the  part  of  the 
animal,  toward  the  end  for  which  she  is  working, 
as  it  is  to  pronounce  regarding  her  want  of  instruc- 
tion. We  have  no  means  of  absolutely  determin- 
ing the  relation  of  the  animal's  consciousness  to  her 
work ;  whereas  it  is  easy  to  ascertain,  and  is  beyond 
all  dispute,  that  she  has  never  learned  her  art  from 
others.  She  is  as  perfect  at  it  at  the  first  as  at  the 
last ;  and  every  bee,  and  every  succeeding  race  of 
bees,  works  exactly  in  the  same  manner,  and  with. 

*  Dialogues  on  Instinct,  pp.  26,  26. 


228  THEISM. 

the  same  exact  degree  of  perfection — all  which 
plainly  declares  the  endowment  to  be  of  a  specific 
character,  distinct  from  ordinary  intelligence. 
There  is,  however,  as  in  the  cases  described,  and 
certain  others,  the  strongest  evidence  for  conclud- 
ing in  the  animal  ignorance  of  intention  toward 
the  special  end  for  which  she  works.  If  we  did 
the  same  things,  we  know  we  should  be  planning 
in  ignorance.  And  even  those  who  have  en- 
deavored most  earnestly  to  reduce  the  operations 
of  instinct  to  the  category  of  ordinary  intelligence, 
have  been  found  to  acknowledge  such  an  absence 
of  foresight  in  the  animal  in  cases  where  the  most 
refined  and  difficult  end  is  yet  subserved.* 

It  has  been  a  favorite  attempt,  it  is  true,  of  cer- 
tain naturalists  to  explain  such  examples  of  animal 
skill  by  the  aid  of  simple  sensations.  The  bee  and 
the  bird  are  supposed  to  proceed  in  their  work 
under  the  guidance  of  certain  corporeal  feelings, 
which  only  reach  their  gratification  in  its  accom- 
plishment. But,  granting  this,  which  is  very 
probable,  it  seems  to  go  but  a  little  way  toward  an 
explanation ;  for,  while  such  sensations  may  account 
for  the  animal's  impulse  toward  her  work,  and  even 
her  continuance  in  it,  they  can  never  surely  account 
for  her  ability  to  perform  it.  They  may  prompt 
it,  but  it  is  inconceivable  that  they  can  execute 
it ;  and  we  find,  accordingly,  that  the  very  writers 

*  CHAMBEBS'S  Papers  for  the  People,  ~Ko.  182,  p.  29. 


INSTINCT.  229 

who  would  reduce  the  whole  process  to  a  series  of 
sensations,  many  of  them  purely  hypothetical,  are 
yet,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  obliged  to  call 
in  a  "constructive  head"  and  a  "stroke  of  genius" 
to  complete  the  work.  No  one,  indeed,  could  de- 
sire a  better  exposure  of  the  futility  of  all  such 
attempts  to  account  for  instinct  on  the  mere  ground 
of  sensation,  than  that  which  is  furnished  by  the 
very  character  of  these  attempts,  as  described  by 
the  writers  in  question.  The  impression  which 
they  must  make  on  every  mind,  which  is  less  eager 
to  support  an  hypothesis  than  to  ascertain  the  truth, 
is  in  the  highest  degree  unsatisfactory.  The  mys- 
tery, as  explained,  is  only  tenfold  more  mysterious, 
while  the  explanation  itself  is  incumbered  by  an 
amount  of  hypothesis  which  renders  it  wholly  value- 
less.* 

The  sensational  view  of  instinct  has  been  fully 
discussed  by  Lord  Brougham  in  his  well-known 
Dialogues — his  interlocutor  urging,  with  great 
acuteness,  all  its  supposed  force  of  explanation. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  it  receives  a  very 
thorough  and  candid  examination,  and  that  it  is 
rightly  pronounced  completely  wanting  at  once  in 
its  arbitrariness,  and  in  its  failure,  even  if  its  arbi- 
trariness were  overlooked,  to  compass  the  most  es  • 

*  Vide  Papers  for  the  People,  No.  182.  pp.  30,  31 — which  we 
mention  because  of  the  eminent  ability  that  marks  it,  entirely 
inconclusive  as  we  conceive  its  reasoning  to  be, 


230  THEISM. 

sential  conditions  of  the  problem.  His  lordship 
has  shown  this  with  great  minuteness,  and  with  the 
most  undeniable  success  in  the  special  case  of  the 
bee ;  and  we  can  not  do  better  than  refer  any  of 
our  readers,  who  would  more  fully  investigate  the 
subject,  to  his  interesting  volume.  It  seems  to  us, 
upon  the  whole,  that  we  are  clearly  warranted  in 
asserting  the  operations  of  instinct  to  be  often  un- 
consious  in  reference  to  the  end  which  they  special- 
ly accomplish.  Nay,  it  seems  to  be,  as  Lord 
Brougham  contends,  that  it  is  this  element  of  blind 
instrumentality  in  the  production  of  a  highly- 
wrought  intellectual  result  that  we  specifically  mean 
by  instinct.  It  is  the  disproportion  and  inadequacy 
of  the  apparent  means  to  the  end  which  constitutes 
the  marvel,  and  has  so  fixed  curiosity  upon  it 

Let  us  see  then  what  is  the  bearing  of  this  upon 
our  subject.  In  such  instinctive  operations,  we 
have  the  presence  of  a  very  high  degree  of  intelli- 
gence. The  important  question  arises,  whose  intel- 
ligence ?  The  whole  result  of  our  examination  of 
the  facts  has  been  to  show  that  it  is  not,  in  any 
common  sense,  the  intelligence  of  the  animal  that 
is  here  at  work.  There  are  some  of  the  facts,  as 
the  rare  mathematical  qualities  of  the  bees'  work, 
which  imply  a  knowledge  that  man  has  only  at- 
tained by  the  most  difficult  and  gradual  mental 
processes,*  and  these  alone  would  seem,  from  the 

*  The  hexagonal  character  of  the  bees'  cell,  and  the  purpose 


INSTINCT.  231 

first,  to  preclude  the  idea  of  the  directing  intelli- 
gence being  that  of  the  animal.  But  the  strongest 
evidence  against  such  a  supposition  consists  certain- 
ly in  the  peculiar  character  of  the  mental  power 
which  here  appears ;  displaying  itself  at  once  in 
such  full  and  exquisite  perfection,  and  with  such 
unerring  success  accomplishing  ends,  of  which  it 
is  incredible  to  conceive  any  prevision  in  the  ani- 
mal. If  we  can  not,  therefore,  accredit  the  animal 
itself  with  either  the  rare  skill  or  the  conscious 
purpose  manifested  in  the  operations,  before  us, 
are  we  not  carried  directly  upward  to  the  Divine 
intelligence  working  in  and  through  the  animal? 
The  argument  may  perhaps  be  stated  more  ex- 


thereby  so  admirably  served  of  the  utmost  possible  saving  of 
space,  are  so  well  known  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  do  more 
than  allude  to  them.  This  peculiar  property  of  the  hexagon 
was  only  ascertained  by  man  in  the  progress  of  mathematical 
discovery.  It  is  particularly  deserving  of  notice,  that  certain 
doubts  which  had  been  cast  upon  the  mathematical  perfection 
of  the  bees'  work  have  been  completely  dissipated  by  Lord 
Brougham,  and  much  new  and  interesting  light  thus  reflected 
on  its  highly  intellectual  character.  From  the  analysis  of  a 
young  mathematician  of  the  name  of  Kcenig,  a  pupil  of  Ber- 
noulli, a  discrepancy  of  two  minutes  was  supposed  to  be  found 
between  the  measurement  of  Maraldi  of  the  actual  angles  of 
the  cell,  and  that  of  the  angles  that  made  the  greatest  saving 
of  wax.  His  lordship,  however,  by  solving  the  problem  in 
another  way,  found  that  the  bee  was  right,  and  the  analyst 
wrong ;  and  other  mathematicians  corroborate  him  in  his  re- 
sult. In  another  respect  also,  as  to  the  saving  of  the  wax  in 
relation  to  the  dimensions  of  the  cell,  which  had  been  disputed 
by  a  Berlin  academician  he  vindicates  the  bee  triumphantly 
against  her  critic. 


232  .       THEISM. 

plicitly  thus :  We  have  here  a  mental  process  of 
a  very  high  order ;  we  must  find  a  mental  agent. 
Such  an  agent  we  do  not  find  in  the  animal ;  it  ap- 
pears, on  the  contrary,  from  all  evidence,  to  be  a 
mere  blind  instrument.  We  are  forced,  therefore, 
to  admit  a  higher  agent.  This  agent  can  only  be 
the  Supreme  Intelligence  every  where  present  in 
creation. 

The  conclusion  which  is  here  expressed  is  well 
known  to  be  that  in  which  many  of  the  highest 
and  most  competent  minds  have  rested.  It  seem» 
to  have  been  that  of  Newton,  if  his  words,  as  quoted 
by  Lord  Brougham,  are  not  yet  entirely  explicit.*- 
Pope,  in  his  well  known  lines,  f  and  Addison,^:  al 
though  with  less  clearness,  have  expressed  the  same 
truth.  His  lordship,  in  his  second  Dialogue,  ar- 
gues it  at  great  length,  and  with  great  force,  so  as 
to  leave  a  strong  impression  in  its  favor  on  the 
mind  of  every  candid  reader,  if  he  may  yet  feel 
some  parts  of  the  argument  not  very  lucid  or  satis- 
factory. 

The  conclusion  is  an  important  one  for  our  sub- 
ject. Even  if  we  do  not  assign  it  any  exclusive 
weight — as,  according  to  our  whole  view,  it  is  not 

*  Dialogues,  pp.  61,  62. 

f         "  See  then  the  acting  and  comparing  powers, 

One  in  their  nature — which  are  two  in  ours ; 

And  reason  raise  o'er  instinct  as  you  can, 

In  this  'tis  God  that  acts,  in  that  'tis  man." — Essay. 

\  Spectator,  No.  120. 


INSTINCT.  233 

so  much  exclusive  in  its  character  as  it  has  been 
commonly  supposed  to  be — it  yet  possesses  an  in- 
teresting force  which  claims  recognition  in  our  in- 
ductive ascent.  All  nature  and  all  life  reveal  a 
present  Deity.  Their  mystery  is  only  intelligible 
in  such  a  presence.  But  here,  in  this  special  mys- 
tery, we  appear  to  see  the  special  presence  of  Di- 
vine agency — the  immediate  operation  of  the  Divine 
Mind. 


§  II— CHAPTER    XII. 

COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN. 

IN  entering  upon  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  it  is 
perhaps  especially  necessary  for  us  to  disclaim  any 
pretension  of  treating  the  subject  by  itself.  Here, 
as  throughout  in  these  chapters,  our  object  is  only 
to  exhibit  the  bearing  of  the  facts  with  which  we 
deal  upon  the  illustration  of  the  Divine  perfections. 
To  a  scientific  investigation  of  the  facts  by  them- 
selves it  would  be  wholly  absurd  in  us  to  pretend. 
We  take  them,  for  the  most  part,  simply  as  they 
are  presented  to  us  by  the  labors  of  others,  who 
have  cultivated  the  respective  sciences  to  which 
they  relate.  It  is  enough  for  us  that  they  are 
recognized  as  facts,  although  in  some  cases  they 
may  admit  of  a  higher  scientific  explanation  than 
that  which  we  give  of  them.  Our  only  concern  is 
to  set  forth  their  theistic  meaning,  neither  mistaking, 
nor,  if  possible,  exaggerating  aught. 

In  regard  to  the  facts  treated  of  in  this  and  the 
succeeding  chapter,   we  can   scarcely  hope  to  be 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      285 

even  so  far  successful.  The  pregnant  interest  of 
the  facts,  in  our  point  of  view,  irresistibly  prompted 
a  survey  of  them ;  yet  their  subtlety,  and  the  dire 
polemic  which  every  where  encompasses  them,  ren- 
der such  a  mere  summary  survey  as  was  at  all  com- 
patible with  our  purpose  peculiarly  difficult.  This, 
however,  is  to  be  kept  in  mind,  that  even  where 
our  statement  and  explanation  of  the  fact  may  not 
be  accepted,  the  theistic  conclusion  which  we  draw 
will,  for  the  most  part,  remain  untouched. 

There  is  no  fact  more  difficult  than  that  which 
meets  us  on  the  threshold  of  the  sphere  of  cogni- 
tion, and  constitutes  its  condition.  Perception  is, 
in  truth,  the  eternal  problem  of  philosophy,  from 
the  special  solution  of  which  systems  take  their  di- 
vergent course  after  an  obvious  and  consistent 
manner,  passing  on  the  one  extreme  to  material- 
ism, on  the  other  to  idealism. 

Sensation  in  its  lowest  forms  we  formerly  found 
to  give,  as  its  essential  condition,  a  sentient  self  or 
subjective.  Perception,  in  every  case,  gives  not 
only  a  self,  but  also  in  correlation  a  not-self,  an 
objective.  The  former  draws  and  contains  the 
field  of  apprehension  within,  the  latter  shuts  it  out 
from  the  sphere  of  self;  no  contrast  or  distinction 
being  given  in  the  former,  distinction  and  contrast 
(apprehension  of  relation)  being  the  characteristic 
of  the  latter.*  Only  in  this  apprehension,  "  not 
*  Sir  W.  HAMILTON'S  Appendix  to  Reid's  Works,  p.  880. 


236  T  H  E  I  S  M . 

merely  of  a  fact,  but  of  relations,"  can  cognition  be 
properly  said  to  begin.  It  is  no  longer  simply 
consciousness,  but  consciousness  expressing  itself 
in  an  attitude  of  distinction  from  objective  phe- 
nomena, the  ego  realizing  itself  against  the  non- 
ego,  and  thereby  becoming  a  center  of  knowledge. 

But  what  more  specially  makes  the  contents  of 
this  fact  of  perception,  or  initial  moment  of  cogni- 
tion ?  This  is  the  metaphysical  life-question,  cease- 
less in  its  stir.  The  old  controversies  die  away, 
but  from  their  ashes  there  spring  up  only  higher 
and  intenser  forms  of  the  problem.*  Meanwhile, 
in  its  secret  depths  •  the  fact  evermore  is  born,  and 
goes  forth  an  intelligible  presence  into  the  world 
of  reality,  however  we  may  explain  or  give  an  ac- 
count of  it. 

On  any  admissible  explanation,  we  have  in  per- 
ception, according  to  what  we  have  already  stated, 
self  and  not-self,  the  ego  and  non  ego,  in  clear  dis- 

*  This  question  has  again  arisen  in  the  sphere  of  our  British 
philosophy,  under  the  handling  of  one  of  the  most  finely  spec- 
ulative minds  that  ever  entered  this  field  of  high  debate.  In 
Professor  Ferrier's  Institutes  of  Metaphysic,  the  latest  doctrine 
of  psychology,  which  had  gained  such  general  acceptance,  has 
been  set  aside  as  not  only  incomplete,  but  vicious  as  a  basis  of 
speculation.  With  Mr.  Ferrier's  special  doctrine  it  would  be 
out  of  place  here  to  meddle.  We  have  no  doxibt,  however,  that 
the  subtlety  and  depth  of  metaphysical  genius  which  his  work 
betrays,  its  rare  display  of  rigorous  and  consistent  reasoning, 
and  the  inimitable  precision  and  beauty  of  its  style  on  almost 
every  page,  must  secure  for  it  a  distinguished  place  in  the  his- 
tory of  philosophical  discussion. 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      237 

tinction,  and  jet  in  indissoluble  relation.  The 
correlation  is  in  the  perceptive  act  inseparable, 
while  its  factors  are  distinguishable.  The  one 
stands  face  to  face  with  the  other,  and  equally 
with  the  other  attests  itself.  The  reality  in  cogni- 
tion is,  therefore,  ever  twofold — subject  and  object ; 
and  in  this  twofold  reality  we  have  for  the  first 
time  the  full  manifestation  of  mind — self-conscious- 
ness not  merely  gazing  outward  upon  the  objective 
world  (as  in  the  brute),  but  realizing  itself  as  dis- 
tinct from  and  above  the  world. 

And  viewed  in  reference  to  our  subject,  what  a 
marvelous  reality  is  this !  With  what  fresh  em- 
phasis does  it  enunciate  the  inexhaustible  energy 
of  the  great  creative  Source  I  What  a  new  and 
beautiful  utterance  of  Divine  wisdom  is  it! — its 
very  "image"  deposited  within  the  conditions  of 
time  and  space  !  What  a  field  of  display  for  the 
Divine  goodness  does  it  open  up !  We  can  not 
conceive  it  doubted  that  the  fact  of  perception  is 
thus  validly  pregnant  with  theistic  significance. 
If,  in  the  various  organs  of  sense,  the  exquisite 
complicacy  and  delicacy  of  the  nervous  system,  we 
recognize  the  clear  manifestation  of  creative  design, 
no  less  surely  must  we  recognize  it  in  the  wonder- 
ful mental  capacity  to  which  these  minister.  For 
it  is  only  in  the  exercise  of  the  mind  in  perception 
that  all  the  sensitive  apparatus  finds  its  highest 
purpose  and  fulfillment.  All  the  marvel  of  its  in- 


238  THEISM. 

tricate  and  beautiful  mechanism  is  only,  in  the  last 
respect,  for  mind's  service.  In  perception,  the 
mind  appropriates  and  adjusts  every  lower  organ 
and  function  for  its  own  nobler  spiritual  uses. 
.Surely,  therefore,  we  must  here  recognize  a 
further  token  of  creative  presence  and  skill. 

The  subjective  and  objective  being  brought  face 
to  face  in  perception,  a  continued  mental  activity 
is  the  result.  The  mind  is  continually  taking  in 
impressions  through  the  avenue  of  the  senses.  It 
is  obvious,  however,  that  without  some  further 
attribute,  this  mental  activity  would  have  little 
availed.  Incessantly  as  it  was  quickened  it  would 
have  expired — the  old  impressions  yielding  to  new 
ones  ever  presenting  themselves.  Knowledge,  in 
any  true  sense,  would  thus  have  been  impossible. 
"Whatever  might  have  been  the  liveliness  or  the 
range  of  perception,  the  mind  could  never  have 
been  truly  cognitive  without  a  power  of  acquisi- 
tion. 

In  the  human  mind  a  preservative  power  seems 
to  emerge  consentaneously  with  the  presentative 
in  perception.  The  mind  not  only  perceives,  but 
retains.  This  is  one  of  the  elements  of  the  com- 
plex faculty  which  philosophers  generally  have 
denominated  memory,  the  other  element  being 
specifically  known  as  recollection.*  There  seems, 

*  "  This  faculty,"  says  Dugald  Stewart,  who  presents  a  very 
clear  and  thorough  analysis  of  it  according  to  its  twofold  con- 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      239 

however,  good  reason  for  confining  the  appellation 
of  memory  to  the  simple  power  of  retention,  which 
undoubtedly  must  be  considered  an  original  apti- 
tude of  the  mind,  irresolvable  into  any  other.  The 
power  of  recalling  the  preserved  impressions  seems, 
on  the  other  hand,  rightly  held  to  be  only  a  modi- 
fied exercise  of  the  suggestive  or  reproductive  fac- 
ulty, which  next  falls  under  our  notice.  This  is 
well  known  as  the  view  of  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  in 
the  establishment  of  which  he  considered  he  had 
destroyed  all  the  claims  of  memory  to  be  regarded 
as  an  original  faculty  of  mind.  But  that  his  sub- 
tlety was  so  far  at  fault,  is  evident  from  the  simple 
fact  that,  apart  from  the  mind's  capacity  of  reten- 
tion, of  which  he  takes  no  account,  the  suggestive 
or  associative  faculty  would  have  no  material 
whereon  to  operate. 

The  best  claim  of  this  power  of  retention  to  be 
reckoned  an  original  element  of  mind  is  seen  in  its 
primary  and  fundamental  importance.  Apart  from 
it,  mind  might  have  been  a  continued,  but  it  would 
necessarily  have  been  an  aimless  and  futile  activity. 
Consciousness  would  have  been  incessantly  born 
only  to  expire — a  mere  series  of  intense  bewilder- 
ment. But  a  simple  power  of  retention  was  not  all 

ception,  "  implies  two  things — a  capacity  of  retaining  knowl- 
edge, and  a  power  of  recalling  it  to  our  thoughts  when  we 
have  occasion  to  apply  it  to  use.  The  word  memory  is  some- 
times employed  to  express  the  capacity,  and  sometimes  the 
power." — Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  vol.  i.  p.  404. 


240  THEISM. 

that  was  necessary.  It  required  to  be,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  knowledge,  the  very  kind  of  retention 
which  we  actually  possess ;  the  power,  for  exam- 
ple, not  only  of  preserving  impressions,  but  of  pre- 
serving them  beyond  the  immediate  sphere  of  con- 
sciousness— storing  them  away,  as  it  were,  within  a 
secret  repository,  whence  they  can  with  more  or  less 
facility  be  drawn  by  the  operation  of  the  suggestive 
faculty.  This  is  a  very  important  feature  of  memory 
which  has  been  too  little  noticed.  It  is  obviously 
the  condition  at  once  of  order  and  repose  among  our 
ideas.  Otherwise,  with  even  an  inconceivably 
higher  range  of  attention  than  we  now  possess,  we 
must  have  been  utterly  oppressed  by  the  comming- 
ling and  hurrying  crowd  of  our  perceptions.  They 
would  have  been  ever  in  presence,  so  many  peti- 
tioners, incessantly  and  with  equal  eagerness  solic- 
iting our  regard,  and  overwhelming  us  with  their 
anxious  suit.  Consciousness  must  have  sunk  un- 
der its  intolerable  burden.  It  would  have  been  no 
longer,  indeed,  a  brief  ever-banishing  impulse,  but 
a  too  vivid  agony.  The  mental  energy  must  have 
perished  under  the  thronging  rush  of  its  recipients, 
like  the  maid  of  Roman  story  under  the  shields  of 
the  invaders  admitted  into  her  fortress.*  "What  a 


*  This  comparison,  which  seemed  to  us  as  sufficiently  fitting, 
is  not  our  own,  but  to  whom  it  belongs  we  can  not  exactly  say. 
It  is  willingly  conceded  to  any  one  who  puts  in  a  valid  claim 
for  it. 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      241 

truly  admirable  provision,  therefore,  is  this  power 
of  retention  I  In  describing  it,  we  have  necessari- 
ly set  forth  at  the  same  time  its  useful  and  benefi- 
cent character. 

"We  can  not  pass  away  from  it  without  noticing 
shortly  its  dependence  upon  attention,  and  the  in- 
teresting use  and  value  of  this  mental  capacity — 
which  is  not  yet  to  be  reckoned,  as  it  has  some- 
times been,  a  separate  faculty,  so  much  as  the  mere 
attitude  or  energy  of  the  soul  in  every  other  facul- 
ty. Even  in  sensation,  which  most  of  all  might  be 
supposed  independent  of  attention,  we  found  that  a 
distinct  act  of  it  was  put  forth.  This  mental  atti- 
tude is,  however,  especially  related  to  the  faculty 
of  retention,  conditioning  it  to  such  a  degree  as  to 
be  apt  even  to  be  confounded  with  it.  This  de- 
pendence of  memory  upon  attention  has  been 
noticed  by  all  our  philosophical  writers.*  Our  de- 
gree of  retention  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  exactly  pro- 
portioned to  our  degree  of  attention.  The  more 
intense  the  attitude  of  the  mind  toward  any  object 
in  the  first  place,  the  more  fixed  the  impression  re- 
tained of  it.  And  thus  it  is  we  readily  account  for 
the  strong  and  ineradicable  impressions  made  by 
those  objects  which  have  interested  the  passions 
and  drawn  forth  the  whole  soul. 

The  importance  and  value  of  this  mental  capaci- 

*  STEWART'S  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  vol.  i.  p.  106  ctseq.; 
LOCKE  On  the  Human  Understanding,  vol.  i.  chap.  x. 
11 


242  THEISM. 

ty  are  abundantly  obvious.  It  may  be  said  to  un- 
derlie our  whole  mental  being,  as  the  condition  of 
its  culture  and  progress,  imparting  to  it  that  ever- 
quickening  spur  which  carries  it  onward  to  new 
triumphs,  and,  to  a  large  extent,  those  varying 
measures  of  development  which  it  manifests  in  dif- 
ferent individuals.  All  science  is  its  product ;  and 
life  owes  to  it  all  its  interest  and  joy.  It  is,  alone, 
its  incessant  operation  from  infancy — filling  the 
storehouse  of  memory  with  the  familiar  images  of 
parents  and  brothers  and  sisters — which  binds  to- 
gether family  ties,  and  strengthens  all  family  love.* 
The  mind  having  apprehended  in  perception  and 
laid  up  in  memory  the  objects  of  knowledge,  it  was 
obviously  necessary  that  it  should  possess  a  power 
of  recalling  or  reproducing  these  objects,  in  order 
that  its  knowledge  should  be  serviceable  to  it. 
Stored  away  irrevocably  beyond  the  sphere  of  con- 
sciousness, they  had  as  well  never  have  been  laid 
up.  We  have  seen  how  requisite  a  provision  it  is 
that  they  should  lie  beyond  this  sphere,  in  order  to 
leave  the  mind  at  liberty  to  occupy  itself  with  oth- 
er objects  continuing  to  solicit  it ;  but  it  is  cleai 
that  if  thus  forever  laid  away,  our  stores  of  per- 

*  Although  we  had  the  capacity  of  retaining  knowledge,  if 
this  capacity  were  not,  as  it  is,  in  proportion  to  attention,  ono 
impression  would  have  been  as  good  and  effectual  as  a  thousand, 
and  all  family  union  and  recognition  would  thus  have  been  im- 
possible. Any  face  would  have  been  just  as  distinguishable,  or 
rather  as  indistinguishable,  to  a  child,  as  the  faces  of  its  parents. 


CO 
r»r»r»f  i , 


COGNITIVE    STEUCTURE    IN    MAN.      243 

ception  could  never  have  become  to  us  stores  of 
experience,  and  mere  accumulation  never  have 
quickened  into  living  knowledge.  We  have,  there- 
fore, the  power  of  recalling  our  past  impressions. 
This  we  are  enabled  to  do  in  virtue  of  that  great 
principle  of  our  mental  constitution  familiarly 
known  as  the  association  of  ideas,  but  more  cor- 
rectly expressed  as  our  suggestive  or  reproductive 
faculty.  There  is  none  of  our  mental  faculties 
which  has  in  later  times  engaged  more  study  than 
this — none  which  has  at  all  times  excited  more  mar- 
vel, and  prompted  more  curious  inquiry. 

The  process  of  reproduction  takes  place  accord- 
ing to  laws  which  have  been  variously  enumerated 
and  described,  and  the  honor  of  first  generalizing 
which  has  been  sometimes  attributed  to  one  or 
other  of  our  modern  philosophers — to  Hobbes, 
Locke,  and  Hume.  Sir  W.  Hamilton,*  however, 
has  recently  claimed  this  honor  for  Aristotle,  whose 
generalization  is  not  only  first  in  time,  but  also,  in 
his  view,  the  most  correct  and  comprehensive. 
These  laws  are  generally  reckoned  at  least  four  in 
number — viz.,  the  law  of  similarity,  the  law  of  con- 
trast or  correlation,  the  law  of  co-adjacency  (conti- 
guity in  time  and  place),  and  what  Sir  William 
Hamilton  has  called  under  protest,  the  law  of  pre- 
ference, meant  to  include  Brown's  secondary  laws 
of  suggestion.  Under  the  operation  of  one  or  oth- 

*   Vide  Appendix  to  Reid's  Works,  Note  D. 


244  THEISM. 

er  of  these  laws  our  mental  activity  proceeds,  and 
all  our  mental  experience  is  accumulated.  Through 
them  order  is  introduced  into  what  would  otherwise 
be  the  mere  chaos  of  mental  succession,  and  the 
way,  as  it  were,  is  cleared  for  the  emergence  of 
those  higher  activities  which  carry  forward  our  in- 
tellectual  development.  Each  mind  receives  its 
peculiar  tone,  and  enters  upon  its  peculiar  educa- 
tion, under  their  influence. 

Putting  out  of  view  the  fourth  of  these  laws, 
which  is  obviously  distinct,  and  not  indeed  properly 
expressive  of  a  principle  of  mental  succession,  but 
only  of  a  determining  accident  of  it,*  it  seems 
possible  to  reduce  the  other  three  to  one  funda- 
mental law  or  principle,  which  may  be  defined  as 
that  whereby  the  mind,  in  all  its  efforts,  completes 
a  circle  of  thought — in  other  words,  brings  a  whole 
into  all  its  representations.  The  special  laws  men- 
tioned seem  all  capable  of  being  regarded  as  merely 
particular  modes  of  the  operation  of  this  one  great 
law  of  integration.  If  we  suppose,  as  an  example 
of  the  first,  the  case  of  one  face,  from  some  point 
of  likeness  in  it,  suggesting  another,  let  us  see  what 
is  the  mental  process  which  lakes  place.  The 
mind,  on  apprehending  the  particular  point  of  re- 

*  It  expresses  the  relation  not  between  mental  phenomena 
in  themselves,  but  between  the  individual  mind  and  any  series 
of  such  phenomena.  It  is  a  determining  accident,  of  associa- 
tion, therefore,  rather  than  an  inherent  principle  or  law 
of  it. 


COGNITIVE    STUUCTUKE    IN    MAN.      245 

semblance  in  the  face  before  it,  immediately  begins 
to  complete  the  image  thereby  recalled.  It  feels 
that  it  has  got  a  part  of  a  whole  formerly  familiar 
to  it,  and  its  immediate  aim  is  to  bring  into  view 
that  whole.  In  ordinary  instances  the  image  com- 
pletes itself  instantaneously,  and  we  are  not  there- 
fore conscious  of  any  such  aim;  but,  in  some 
instances,  it  is  only  after  frequent  efforts  that  it 
does  so  (as  when  we  see  a  face  resembling  some 
one  that  we  can  not  yet  recall),  and  then  we  become 
distinctly  conscious  of  the  reproductive  operation. 
The  eye,  or  mouth,  or  whatever  part  of  the  strange 
face  is  recognized  as  familiar,  is  fixed  upon  by  the 
mind,  and  becomes  the  center  of  a  representative 
picture  which  the  mind  has  no  satisfaction  till  it 
has  completed.  In  the  case  of  the  law  of  contrast, 
as  when  night  suggests  day,  good  evil,  a  dwarf  a 
giant,  the  mental  process  is  still  more  obviously  of 
this  integrating  character.*  For,  in  fact,  the  one 
mental  conception  here  directly  involves  the  other, 
and  is  only  fully  intelligible  in  relation  to  it.  Each 
idea  is  to  us  only  what  it  is,  on  account  of  its  op- 
posite. In  passing  from  the  one  to  the  other, 
therefore,  the  mind  is  simply  completing  the  com- 
plex image,  one  side  of  which  is  always  the  neces- 
sary correlate  of  the  other.  The  same  seems  to 

*  Sir  W.  Hamilton  calls  this  law  specially  the  law  of  rela- 
tivity or  integral  ion.—  Vide  Appendix  to  Reid's  Works,  Note 
D,  p.  911. 


246  THEISM. 

hold  equally  true  of  the  law  of  co-adjacency,  as 
when  a  certain  house  recalls  the  friends  we  met — 
the  conversation  we  had  in  it ;  or  when  one  event 
recalls  another  which  happened  at  the  same  time. 
In  both  cases  the  mental  process  obviously  consists 
in  the  completion  from  a  fragmentary  of  a  total 
representation,  previously  laid  up  in  the  storehouse 
of  memory. 

When  the  train  of  association  is  once  started 
(the  integrating  process  once  begun),  it  proceeds 
throughout  in  the  same  way.  Every  successive 
representation  called  up,  still  surrounds  itself  with 
another  as  part  of  a  further  whole.  It  is  often  the 
very  slightest  bond — so  slight  as  to  escape,  at  the 
moment,  detection — that  unites  the  successive  evo- 
lutions of  the  mental  panorama.  In  one  mind, 
moreover,  association  will  take  place  by  deeper  and 
more  remote,  in  another,  by  more  common  and 
palpable,  analogies.  Mental  refinement  is  really 
nothing  else  than  the  facile  play  of  association  round 
the  more  subtle  and  recondite  characteristics  of 
things — their  more  hidden  and  beautiful  relations. 
It  is  simply  the  exquisite  edge  imparted  by  disci- 
pline to  the  reproductive  faculty. 

In  speaking  thus  of  the  process  of  reproduction 
as  throughout  of  an  integrating  character,  it  may 
be  necessary  to  guard  against  our  being  supposed 
to  say  that  the  mind  necessarily  impresses  a  whole 
upon  all  the  successive  train  of  its  ideas.  This, 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      247 

on  the  contrary,  we  know  it  frequently  does  nat  do, 
the  last  link  in  the  train  having  often  no  relation 
to  the  first  as  parts  of  a  common  whole.  Mental 
succession  is  not  unfrequently,  as  in  reverie,  a  mere 
straggling  array  of  scattered  images.  The  integra- 
tion does  not  proceed,  as  it  is  not  necessary  that  it 
should,  all  along  its  course,  but  only  from  step  to 
step.  The  general  train  may  thus  present  a  very 
incongruous  mixture  of  ideas,  while  it  has  yet,  at 
every  step,  strictly  obeyed  the  great  law  of  mental 
development.  "We  may  further  observe  that  it  is 
not  necessary,  as  we  might  be  apt  to  think  from 
a  first  confused  conception  of  the  law,  that  the 
facts  of  a  train  of  association  should  have  pre- 
viously coexisted  in  the  mind.  In  some  cases  they 
have  coexisted,  and  to  this  fact  of  their  coexist- 
ence is  owing  their  tendency  to  reproduce  one 
another ;  but  more  frequently  they  have  had  no 
such  previous  alliance  in  the  mind.  An  object 
never  before  perceived  may  suggest  an  old  familiar 
object ;  while,  again,  an  object  frequently  perceived, 
may  suggest,  in  different  moments,  very  different 
and  even  quite  nev/  trains  of  thought.  Were  it 
not  for  this  characte  ristic  of  the  principle  of  asso- 
ciation, the  field  of  our  knowledge  would  have 
been  comparatively  narrow,  confined  as  it  must 
have  been  to  the  relations  which,  from  actual  ob- 
servation, we  had  stored  up  in  our  minds.  We 
would  never  have  been  able  to  get  out  of  the  past 


248  THEISM. 

wheel  or  circle  of  our  thoughts.  As  it  is,  the  sug- 
gestive capacity,  continually  started  by  every  thing 
around  us,  is  in  all  active  and  cultivated  minds 
ever  entering  on  fresh  fields  of  intellectual  interest, 
and  acquiring  fresh  stores  of  knowledge. 

Altogether,  there  is,  perhaps,  no  part  of  our  in- 
tellectual condition  of  which  the  beneficial  use  and 
beauty  are  more  conspicuous.  Apart  from  it,  life 
could  have  possessed  no  individual  interest;  and 
the  continual  flow  of  consciousness  could  never 
have  become  concentrated  and  quickened  into 
special  cultivation  and  happiness.  In  the  language 
of  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  "It  is  the  suggesting  prin- 
ciple, the  reviver  of  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
have  passed  away,  that  gives  value  to  all  our  other 
powers  and  susceptibilities,  intellectual  and  moral 
— not,  indeed,  by  producing  them,  for,  though  un- 
evolved,  they  would  still,  as  latent  capacities,  be  a 
part  of  the  original  constitution  of  our  spiritual 
nature — but  by  rousing  them  into  action,  and  fur- 
nishing them  with  those  accumulating  and  inex- 
haustible materials  which  are  to  be  the  elements 
of  future  thought,  and  the  objects  of  future  emo- 
tion. Every  talent  by  which  we  excel,  and  every 
vivid  feeling  which  animates  us,  derive  their  energy 
from  the  suggestions  of  this  ever-active  principle. 
We  love  and  hate;  we  desire  and  fear;  we  use 
means  for  obtaining  good  and  avoiding  evil,  be- 
cause we  remember  the  objects  and  occurrences 


COGNITIVE    S  T  B  U  C  TU  11  E    IN    M  AN .      249 

which  we  have  formerly  observed,  and  because  the 
future,  in  the  similarity  of  the  successions  which  it 
presents,  appears  to  us  only  a  prolongation  of  the  past. 
"  In  conferring  on  us  ihe  capacity  of  these  spon- 
taneous suggestions,  then,  Heaven  has  much  more 
than  doubled  our  existence ;  for  without  it,  and 
consequently  without  those  faculties  and  emotions 
which  involve  it,  existence  would  scarcely  have 
been  desirable.  The  very  importance  of  the  bene- 
fits which  we  derive  from  it,  however,  renders  us, 
perhaps,  less  sensible  of  its  value ;  since  it  is  so 
mingled  with  all  our  knowledge,  and  all  our  plans 
of  action,  that  we  find  it  difficult  to  conceive  a 
state  of  sentient  being  of  which  it  is  not  a  part, 
and  to  estimate,  consequent^,  at  a  just  amount  the 
advantage  which  it  affords.  The  future  memory 
of  perception  seems  to  us  almost  implied  in  percep- 
tion itself ;  and  to  speculate  on  that  strange  state 
of  existence  which  would  have  been  the  condition 
of  man  if  he  had  been  formed  without  the  power 
of  remembrance,  and  capable  of  only  a  series  of 
sensations,  has  at  first  an  appearance  almost  of 
absurdity  and  contradiction,  as  if'  we  were  imagin- 
ing condition  which  were  in  their  nature  incom- 
patible. Yet,  assuredly,  if  it  were  possible  for  us  to 
consider  such  a  subject  a  priori,  the  real  cause  of 
wonder  would  appear  to  be,  not  in  the  absence  of 
the  suggestions  of  memory,  as  in  the  case  im- 
agined, but  in  that  remembrance  of  which  we  have 
11* 


250  THEISM. 

the  happy  experience.  When  a  feeling  of  the  ex- 
istence, of  which  consciousness  furnishes  the  only 
evidence,  has  passed  away  so  completely  that  not 
even  the  slightest  consciousness  of  it  remains,  it 
would  surely,  but  for  that  experience,  be  more 
natural  to  suppose  that  it  had  perished  altogether, 
than  that  it  should,  at  the  distance  of  many  years, 
without  any  renewal  of  it  by  the  external  cause 
which  originally  produced  it,  again  start,  as  it  were 
of  itself,  into  being.  To  foresee  that  which  has  not 
yet  begun  to  exist,  is  in  itself  scarcely  more  un- 
accountable than  to  see  as  it  were  before  us  what 
has  wholly  ceased  to  exist.  The  present  moment 
is  all  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  which  can 
strictly  be  said  to  have  a  real  existence,  in  relation  to 
ourselves.  That  mode  of  time  which  we  call  the 
past,  and  that  other  mode  of  time  which  we  call 
the  future,  are  both  equally  unexisting.  That  the 
knowledge  of  either  should  be  added  to  us,  so  as 
to  form  a  part  of  our  present  consciousness,  is  a 
gift  of  Heaven,  most  beneficial  to  us,  indeed,  but 
most  mysterious,  and  equally,  or  nearly  equally, 
mysterious,  whether  the  unexisting  time  of  which 
the  knowledge  is  indulged  to  us  be  the  future  or 
the  past."* 

Nor  is  the  Divine  wisdom  and  benevolence  alone 
manifest  in  the  simple  power  bestowed  upon  us  of 
reproducing  our  former  thoughts  and  feelings,  but 
*  BROWN'S  Lectures,  tenth  edit.,  p.  217,  218. 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      251 

especially  in  the  actual  mode  of  their  reproduction, 
according  to  certain  definite  laws.  This  definite- 
ness  in  the  procedure  of  the  suggestive  faculty  is 
the  sole  condition  of  our  being  able  to  apply  our 
experience,  and  to  make  continued  progress  in  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge.  It  alone  enables  us  to  de- 
vise plans  of  acquisition,  and  to  calculate  upon  the 
results  of  education.  "Without  it,  we  might  have 
enjoyed,  in  the  power  of  reproduction,  a  variety 
of  feeling,  but  it  could  have  been  of  no  use  either 
for  our  happiness  or  our  cultivation.  "  He  who 
has  given  us,  in  one  simple  principle,  the  power  of 
reviving  the  past,  has  not  made  His  gifts  so  una- 
vailing. The  feelings  which  this  wonderful  prin- 
ciple preserves  and  restores,  arise,  not  loosely  and 
confusedly,  but  according  to  general  laws  or  ten- 
dencies of  succession,  contrived  with  the  most  ad- 
mirable adaptation  to  our  wants,  so  as  to  bring 
again  before  us  the  knowledge  formerly  acquired 
by  us,  at  the  very  time  when  it  is  most  profitable 
that  it  should  return.  A  value  is  thus  given  to 
experience,  which  otherwise  would  not  be  worthy 
of  the  name ;  and  we  are  enabled  to  extend  it  al- 
most at  pleasure,  so  as  to  profit,  not  merely  by  that 
experience  which  the  events  of  nature,  occurring 
in  conformity  with  these  general  laws,  must  at  any 
rate  have  afforded  to  us,  but  to  regulate  this  very 
experience  itself,  to  dispose  objects  and  events  so 
that,  by  tendencies  of  suggestion  on  the  firmness 


252  THEISM. 

of  whieh  we  may  put  perfect  reliance,  they  shall 
give  us,  perhaps  at  the  distance  of  many  years, 
such  lessons  as  we  may  wish  them  to  yield,  and  thus 
to  invent  and  create,  in  a  great  measure,  the  intellect- 
ual and  moral  history  of  our  future  life,  as  an  epic  or 
dramatic  writer  arranges  at  his  will  the  continued 
scenes  of  his  various  and  magnificent  narrative."* 

In  our  analysis  of  the  cognitive  structure  in 
man  we  have  now  reached  an  important  stage. 
We  have  marked  the  great  facts  of  perception, 
memory,  and  suggestion,  in  their  respective  bear- 
ings on  our  subject.  In  the  first,  we  have  seen  the 
mind  presentative  or  intuitive  (the  subject  standing 
face  to  face  with  ihe  objective  reality  in  percep- 
tion), in  the  second,  retentive,  in  the  third,  repre- 
sentative. It  is  desirable  to  notice  the  peculiar 
advance  of  the  mental  capacity  in  this  third  stage. 
It  is  no  longer  the  immediate  facts  of  nature  with 
which  it  deals.  It  is  no  longer  directly  conversant 
with  the  objective  realities  every  where  obtruded 
upon  it,  but  with  its  own  reconstructions  of  these 
realities.  It  is  not  the  thing  itself  any  more  which 
the  mind  has  before  it,  but  an  image  or  representa- 
tion of  it.  It  has,  as  it  were,  freed  itself  from  the 
presence  of  the  outward  world,  and  begun  to  con- 
struct for  itself  a  new  world  of  ideas.  Here,  there- 
fore, it  enters  into  a  far  higher  sphere  of  activity 
than  before. 

*  B«0vx'«  I^rfwra,  tenth  edit,  p.  218. 


v  x,  v  N 


\  HM  the 
x  clops  into  thoF'    N 

ons, 

.    •  • 

••n  these 
i  *>  ftiAgittfct    Theae  un- 

<&&•<•  •-.  \aiii  njUioih 

- 

A  of  it«  ]  \-\s-, 
\    ,  •         .   -.  -    .  • 

these  ideas  r  ••*  it 

does  i 

o-eii- 
ewd  idea  —  as  when^  from  several  reprc 

.vl  men,  we  attain  to  the  general  idea  of 
ttftft  —  a  pix>cess  well  known  as  generalization  ;  or, 
agar  \irating  from  different  objects  held  in 

specific  quality,  and  making- 
idea  —  as  when  we  recognize  diiV« 
ute  or  cold,  etc.,  •  erty 

uess  or  coldness  being  c< 

\\  ftU    tl  ftOWft  as 
e  menlnl  aot  lu^re.  it  i*,  is 

^e  of  ass* 


254  THEISM. 

left  behind  the  actual  objective  world,  to  concern 
itself  with  its  own  ideas,  or  reconstruction  of  that 
world.  But  these  ideas  yet  directly  represent  the 
original  realities  :  the  one  looks  back  to  the  other. 
Here,  however,  in  the  processes  of  generalization 
and  abstraction,  the  mind  no  longer  looks  beyond 
its  own  forms  or  notions.  Its  ideasr  from  being 
mere  representations  of  past  objects  of  perception, 
become,  irrespective  of  all  reference  to  such  ob- 
jects, fixed  mental  possessions,  which  we  contem- 
plate by  themselves,  and  by  which  we  carry  on 
trains  of  reasoning. 

It  is  necessary  to  state,  however,  that  an  indis- 
pensable preliminary  to  this  advance  of  intelligence 
is  the  power  of  language — a  power  which  even 
emerges  on  the  lower  sphere  of  simple  representa- 
tion, and  is  requisite  to  its  development  to  any  ex- 
tent. Without  such  a  power,  the  mind  might  con- 
struct representations  of  the  objects  of  its  past  ex- 
perience, as  is  clearly  done  by  the  lower  animals, 
but  it  could  not  hold  them  before  it  freely  when 
separated  from  experience.  It  could  not  freely  en- 
tertain and  make  use  of  its  ideas  without  a  power 
of  embodying  them  in  signs.*  And  especially  it 
could  not,  apart  from  signs,  begin  that  process  of 

*  See  MORELL'B  Elements  of  Psychology,  p.  183,  184,  in  which 
the  peculiar  functions  of  what  he  calls  the  sematic  power  are 
exhibited  with  great  clearness,  and  to  which  the  writer  has,  in 
these  few  paragraphs  on  the  understanding,  been  considerably 
indebted. 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      255 

comparison  among  its  ideas  which  constitutes  the 
special  function,  of  the  understanding.  It  is  only 
when  the  mind  has,  through  the  aid  of  language, 
fixed  its  representations,  and  given  them,  so  to 
speak,  a  new  objectivity  within  its  own  realm,  that 
it  can  deal  with  them  entirely  by  themselves,  and, 
apart  altogether  from  the  outward  world,  carry  on 
that  higher  course  of  activity  which  we  peculiarly 
denominate  thought. 

The  parallel  range  of  mental  activity,  which  we 
have  named  imagination,  is  one  in  which  the  mind 
is  still  more  eminently  productive.  The  term  im- 
agination, we  are  aware,  is  often  applied  to  a  lower 
degree  of  mental  power;  but  we  think  that  it  is  far 
more  appropriately  confined  to  the  higher  energy 
which,  while  dealing  directly  with  sensible  images, 
and  so  far  standing  on  a  lower  intellectual  platform 
than  the  understanding,  yet  even,  in  its  ordinary 
flights,  carries  with  it  often  all  the  special  activities 
of  the  understanding — abstracting  and  generalizing 
and  classifying  its  appropriate  objects,  as  it  weaves 
them  into  new  forms  of  interest  or  beauty.*  It  is 

*  This  would  seem  to  imply  that  the  imagination  can  only  be 
rightly  treated  after  the  logical  faculty  whose  special  process  it 
presupposes.  And  this  we  apprehend  to  be  the  truth.  Mr. 
Morell,  in  his  recent  work — admirable  in  many  respects — has 
not,  according  to  our  view,  sufficiently  distinguished  imagina- 
tion. The  term  is  applied  by  him  to  two  mental  processes,  the 
lower  of  which  appears  to  be  simply  equivalent  to  what  Stewart 
called  conception,  or  the  power  we  possess  of  holding  our  ideas 
before  us,  separated  from  all  immediate  reference  to  place  or 


256  THEISM. 

this  formative  or  creative  element,  certainly,  which 
is  the  constitutive  one  of  imagination  in  the  high 
est  sense.  It  may  not  inaptly  be  considered  to  be 
the  mental  energy  in  its  greatest  heat  of  product- 
ivity ;  not  merely,  as  in  argumentation,  construct- 
ing within  the  province  of  the  abstract,  building 
up  some  linked  structure  of  sequential  beauty ;  but 
constructing  within  the  province  of  the  possible, 
and  building  up  some  "  sunny  dome,"  outmatching 
the  most  subtle  combinations  of  the  understanding. 
It  is  impossible  for  any  to  attend  for  a  moment  to 
the  simplest  exercise  of  imagination,  as  it  transacts 
itself  even  in  those  day-dreams  which  almost  all 
have,  without  perceiving  that  the  main  element  of 
the  exercise  is  thus  creative.  The  imaginative  pro- 
cess is  also  an  intensely  vivid  one ;  but  it  is  not,  as 
some  have  thought,  its  vivacity  which  pre-eminently 
distinguishes  it  from  other  phases  of  mental  repre- 


time;  and  the  higher  (which  he  calls  pioductive  or  creative 
imagination)  is  with  him  apparently  nothing  else  than  the 
general  process  whereby  the  mind  associates  its  ideas.  This 
confusion  of  imagination  with  the  general  power  of  association 
is,  it  appears  to  us,  quite  mistaken.  For  the  process  of  the  re- 
covery of  our  ideas,  transacted  under  the  guide  of  the  laws  of 
association,  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  special  creative  ele- 
ment. The  mind  may,  in  this  process,  be  simply  recollective, 
although,  no  doubt,  it  often  also  is  eminently  productive.  As- 
sociation may  in  any  case,  therefore,  readily  pass  into  imagina- 
tion. Yet  in  all  cases  imagination  is  something  specific  and 
superior ;  rightly  ranking  even  above  the  understanding,  be- 
cause carrying  up  the  processes  of  the  latter  into  all  its  more 
characteristic  and  important  exercises. 


COGNITIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.      257 

sentation.  This  is  merely  the  gleam  which  the 
mental  wheel  emits  in  its  glowing  activity — the 
flash  of  the  intensely-quickened  formative  process. 
But  it  is  the  formative  element  itself,  and  not  its 
attendant  light,  which  constitutes  imagination.  It 
is  the  gift  of  creation  which  makes  the  painter  and 
the  poet — the  workmen  of  the  imagination.  The 
vivacity  is  merely  the  bright  accompaniment  of  the 
gift. 

There  is  thus  a  striking  alliance,  and  an  equally 
striking  diversitj  between  the  mental  powers  of 
ratiocination  and  imagination.  The  one  gives  us 
science,  the  other  art.  The  one  is  the  organ  of  dis- 
covery, the  other  of  inventiveness,  in  the  noblest 
sense.  The  one  deals  with  notions  (concepts),  the 
other  with  images  (pictures),  conveyed  through  the 
medium  of  the  senses.  From  the  intimate  connec- 
tion of  imagination  with  the  senses,  making  them, 
as  it  does,  directly  tributary  in  its  highest  workings 
— whereas  the  mind,  in  reasoning,  ranges  only 
among  its  pure  ideas — the  former  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  the  lower  faculty.  Yet,  from  the 
spiritual  regions  into  which  imagination  can  carry 
its  flights,  it  undoubtedly  asserts  for  itself  the  loftier 
place  and  dignity  in  the  end.  It  enters  into  the  in- 
finite, which  is  throughout  a  forbidden  sphere  to 
the  understanding;  and,  mediating  between  the 
appropriate  inspirations  of  spirit  and  of  sense,  the 
minister  of  both,  it  only  reaches  its  true  glory 


258  THEISM. 

wlien  clothing  the  lower  intuitions  in  the  celestial 
garment  of  the  higher. 

In  reverting,  in  conclusion,  to  their  specific  bear- 
ing on  our  subject,  how  powerfully  do  both  these 
forms  of  mental  energy  express  the  Divine  wisdom 
and  benevolence  !  how  directly  do  they  speak  of 
an  infinite  source  of  mental  fullness  and  strength  ! 
That  high  power  of  reflective  investigation  which 
has  constructed  the  vast  and  ever-expanding  edifice 
of  human  science,  and  searches  with  so  penetrating 
an  insight  and  so  powerful  a  range  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  to  make  them  tributary  to  its  purpose ; 
and  that  still  more  marvelous  capacity,  a  delegated 
creator  within  its  sphere,  which  has  wrought  such 
exquisite  combinations  of  poetry  and  of  art,  accu- 
mulating treasures  of  wisdom  and  of  beauty  to  our 
race — surely  these  bespeak  a  Master  Mind,  whose 
image  they  are,  and  whose  beneficent  glory  they 
reflect. 


§  II.— CHAPTER  XIII. 

EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN. 

WE  pass  finally,  in  this  section  of  evidence,  to  a 
brief  consideration  of  the  emotive  sphere  of  our  na- 
ture, which  is  very  rich  in  results  for  our  purpose. 
It  is  its  emotional  capacity  which  imparts  to  hu- 
man life  all  its  peculiar  and  ever-freshening  inter- 
est. It  may  be  possible  to  conceive  a  being  made 
capable  of  intellectual  without  emotional  activity. 
"  We  might,  perhaps,"  says  Dr.  Thomas  Brown, 
"  have  been  so  constituted  with  respect  to  our  in- 
tellectual states  of  mind,  as  to  have  had  all  the 
varieties  of  these,  our  remembrances,  judgments, 
and  creations  of  fancy,  without  one  emotion.  But 
without  the  emotions  which  accompany  them,  of 
how  little  value  would  the  mere  intellectual  func- 
tions have  been  !  It  is  to  our  vivid  feelings  of  this 
class  we  must  look  for  those  tender  regards  which 
make  our  remembrances  sacred — for  that  love  of 
truth  and  glory  and  mankind,  without  which,  to 
animate  and  reward  us  in  our  discovery  and  diffu- 


260  THEISM. 

sion  of  knowledge,  the  continued  exercise  of  judg- 
ment would  be  a  fatigue  rather  than  a  satisfaction  ; 
and  for  all  that  delightful  wonder  which  we  feel 
when  we  contemplate  the  admirable  creations  of 
fancy,  or  the  still  more  admirable  beauties  of  their 
unfading  model — that  model  which  is  ever  before 
us,  and  the  imitation  of  which,  as  it  has  been  truly 
said,  is  the  only  imitation  that  is  itself  originality. 
By  our  other  mental  functions  we  are  mere  specta- 
tors of  the  machinery  of  the  universe,  living  and 
inanimate  ;  by  our  emotions  we  are  admirers  of  na- 
ture, lovers  of  men,  adorers  of  God.  The  earth, 
without  them,  would  be  only  a  field  of  colors,  in- 
habited by  beings  who  may  contribute,  indeed, 
more  permanently  to  our  means  of  physical  com- 
fort than  any  one  of  the  inanimate  forms  which  we 
behold ;  but  who,  beyond  the  moment  in  which 
they  are  capable  of  affecting  us  with  pain  or  pleas- 
ure, would  be  only  like  the  other  forms  and  colors 
which  would  meet  us  wherever  we  turned  our 
weary  and  restless  eye;  and  God  himself,  the 
source  of  all  good,  and  the  object  of  all  worship, 
would  be  only  the  Being  by  whom  the  world  was 
made."* 

The  truth  is,  that  while  it  may  be  possible  for  us 
to  imagine  intellectual  life  apart  from  emotional, 
we  can  not  imagine  any  development  of  the  one 
without  the  other  ;  for  the  advancement  of  knowl- 

*  BROWN'S  Lectures,  tenth  edit.,  p.  339. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.     261 

edge  and  of  civilization,  if  the  direct  product  of 
our  intellectual,  is  no  less  truly  the  indirect  product 
of  our  emotional  nature,  the  one  being  called  into 
activity  all  along  its  course  only  by  the  other.  All 
the  progressive  springs  of  humanity  take  their  rise 
in  our  emotional  being.  In  virtue  of  it  alone  do 
we  own  the  spur  of  a  happiness  which  is  never  sat- 
isfied, and  of  a  glory  which  is  still  distant.  In  the 
very  fact,  therefore,  of  our  combined  emotive  and 
cognitive  activity,  we  are  bound  to  recognize  the 
wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Creator.  How  blank 
and  unbeneficent  would  life  have  been  as  a  mere 
round  of  passionless  intellectuality  !  "Where  would 
have  been  all  that  now  makes  its  charm,  and  ren- 
ders it,  amid  the  gathering  darkness  of  death,  still 
dear  ?  Where  would  have  been  all  the  most  ex- 
quisite products  of  literature  and  of  art,  without 
passion  to  portray  or  interest  to  kindle  ?  And  we 
must  surely,  then,  acknowledge  the  beneficence  of 
the  Hand  which  has  clothed  life  with  all  those  soft 
and  tender  attributes — that  garment  of  ever- vary- 
ing emotion  which  makes  it  truly  life.  Here,  in- 
deed, we  shall  find  the  most  abundant  traces  of  the 
Divine  goodness. 

We  do  not  attempt  any  systematic  analysis,  far 
less  any  exhaustive  classification,  of  the  emotions. 
Here,  as  every  where,  our  purpose  only  requires, 
and  our  space  can  only  afford,  a  general  glance  at 
the  phenomena  which  crowd  upon  us. 


262  THEISM. 

Among  the  lowest  and  most  universal  group  of 
emotions  seem  to  be  those  which  serve  to  guard, 
and,  so  to  speak,  intrench  life,  of  which  Alarm  on 
the  negative  side,  and  A  nger*  on  the  positive,  may 
be  considered  the  generic  expressions,  f  Through- 
out the  whole  course  of  animal  life  these  emotions 
are  found  deeply  implanted.  In  the  feeblest  ani- 
mal forms,  alarm  is  seen  manifesting  itself  on  the 
approach  or  the  contact  of  any  unknown  object. 
And  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being  to  man  himself, 
1;he  motive  becomes,  indeed,  less  obtrusive  in  its 
modes  of  operation,  more  refined  and  disguised  in 
its  character,  but  not  less  really  present  and  pow- 
erful. It  lives  a  silent  yet  watchful  sentinel  in  every 
human  bosom,  conservative  not  only  of  life,  but  of 
all  that  gives  beauty  and  dignity  and  happiness  to 
life.  How  vividly,  for  example,  does  it  reign  in  the 
mother  for  the  care  of  her  offspring ;  in  the  house- 
holder for  the  care  of  his  goods  ;  in  the  citizen  for 
the  care  of  the  commonwealth  ;  in  the  maiden  for 
the  care  of  her  virtue !  It  is  every  where  the  guard- 
ian of  life  and  its  treasures.  Whenever  life  becomes 
intensified,  fraught  as  with  a  deeper  wealth  and  full- 

*  We  are  sensible  that  these  very  names  already  suggest  an 
inference  unfavorable  to  the  benevolence  of  the  Creator.  But 
here,  as  before,  we  must  ask  a  postponement  of  judgment  as  to 
the  hostile  suggestions  which  every  where  necessarily  arise  with 
the  very  first  statement  of  the  evidence  for  the  Divine  goodness. 

f  See  Dr.  M 'Vicar's  ingenious  and  highly  philosophical  In- 
quiry into  Human  Nature,  which  the  writer  has  very  advanta- 
geously consulted  on  this  part  of  his  subject. 


. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       263 

ness  of  possession,  there  alarm,  however  undemon- 
strative, stands  a  more  vigilant  guardian.  And 
did  it  not  do  so — were  the  ^oul  not  readily  fluttered 
and  put  up  when  destructijn  threatened — what  an 
invaded  and  desecrated  thing  would  life  soon  be- 
come I 

The  continuation  of  alarm — not  merely  the  first 
movement  or  flutter  of  the  soul,  but  the  prolonged 
emphasis  of  the  emotion — becomes  fear — apprehen- 
sion— inciting  to  escape  from  danger.  The  object 
of  alarm,  if  not  removed,  has  a  constant  tendency 
thus  to  pass  into  an  object  of  fear.  Terror,  which 
sometimes  stands  for  the  generic  emotion,  seems 
certainly  more  correctly  regarded  as  its  highest  ex- 
cess, betokening  the  comparative  feebleness  of  the 
subject  of  it.  The  danger  is  so  imminent  and 
threatening  that  the  mere  guardian  impulse  loses 
itself  in  that  species  of  convulsive  agitation  which 
we  specially  denominate  terror.  Panic,  again,  is 
contagious  alarm  The  simple  emotion  has  a  ten- 
dency to  propagate  itself  from  heart  to  heart,  and 
as  it  propagates,  it  kindles  into  intenser  forms,  till 
it  becomes  that  general  and  helpless  movement  of 
fear  which  we  call  panic. 

Along  with  this  class  of  emotions  may  be  reck- 
oned another  class,  different  in  character,  yet  also 
allied,  as  revealing  something  of  the  same  caution- 
ary character.  Of  this  class,  surprise  and  wondei 
may  stand  as  specimens.  These  emotions  we  ex- 


264  THEISM. 

perience  on  the  presentation  of  some  new,  striking, 
or  unexpected  object.  We  pause  and  are  arrested, 
but  do  not,  as  in  alarm,  feel  any  impulse  to  retreat. 
Where  the  exciting  cause  is  not  novelty,  or  unex- 
pectedness, but  something  great,  unknown,  and  but 
dimly  suggested,  wonder  becomes  awe.  These 
emotions  are  not,  like  the  preceding,  directly  con- 
servative, but  they  involve  a  conservative  element ; 
and  it  is  remarkable  that  they  all  readily  pass  over 
into  alarm,  or  some  of  its  directly  associate  feelings. 
They  all  tend  to  drive  the  soul  backward  within 
itself;  while  yet,  by  a  strange  paradox,  often  mark- 
ing (as  all  true  and  comprehensive  observers  know) 
the  deepest  facts  of  nature,  they  also  tend  to  draw 
it  forth  and  detain  it  before  the  exciting  object.  It 
is  this  balance  of  movement,  the  oscillation  of  back- 
ward and  forward,  of  retreat  and  advance,  which 
makes  the  pause  so  characteristic  of  these  emotions. 
The  great  generic  emotion  of  'anger  is  perhaps 
even  more  actively  conservative  in  its  character 
than  alarm ;  for  it  is  positive,  while  the  latter  is 
only  negative.  It  furnishes  weapons  of  defense, 
while  the  other  only  instigates  to  flight.  Dr.  Thom- 
as Brown  has  described  it  very  finely  and  eloquent- 
ly under  this  point  of  view.  So  obviously  is  it  the 
view  under  which  it  falls  to  be  considered,  that  all 
which  he  says  regarding  it  is  little  more  than  a  re- 
presentation of  the  beneficial  ends  which  it  thus 
subserves.  "  There  is  a  principle  in  our  mind,"  he 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.        265 


says,  "  which  is  to  us  like  a  constant  protectoi 
which  may  slumber,  indeed,  but  which  slumbers 
only  at  seasons  when  its  vigilance  would  be  use- 
less— which  wakes,  therefore,  at  the  first  appear- 
ance of  unjust  intention,  and  which  becomes  more 
watchful  and  more  vigorous  in  proportion  to  the 
violence  of  the  attack  which  it  has  to  dread.  What 
should  we  think  of  the  providence  of  Nature,  if, 
when  aggression  was  threatened  against  the  weak 
and  unarmed  at  a  distance  from  the  aid  of  others, 
there  were  instantly  and  uniformly,  by  the  inter- 
vention of  some  wonder-working  power,  to  rush 
into  the  hand  of  the  defenseless  a  sword,  or  other 
weapon  of  defense  ?  And  yet  this  would  be  but  a 
feeble  assistance,  if  compared  with  that  which  we  re- 
ceive from  those  simple  emotions  which  Heaven 
has  caused  to  rush,  as  it  were,  into  our  mind  for 
repelling  every  attack.  What  would  be  a  sword 
in  the  trembling  hand  of  the  infirm,  of  the  aged, 
of  him  whose  pusillanimous  spirit  shrinks  at  the 
very  appearance,  not  of  danger  merely,  but  even 
of  the  arms  by  the  use  of  which  danger  might  be 
averted,  and  to  whom,  consequently,  the  very 
sword,  which  he  scarcely  knew  how  to  grasp,  would 
be  an  additional  cause  of  terror,  not  an  instrument 
of  defense  and  safety  ?  The  instant  anger  which 
arises  does  more  than  many  such  weapons.  It  gives 
the  spirit  which  knows  how  to  make  a  weapon  of 
every  thing,  01  which,  of  itself,  does  without  a 
12 


266  THEISM. 

weapon  what  even  a  thunderbolt  would  be  power- 
less to  do  in  the  shuddering  grasp  of  the  coward. 
When  anger  arises,  fear  is  gone ;  there  is  no  coward, 
for  all  are  brave.  Even  bodily  infirmity  seems  to 
yield  to  it,  like  the  very  infirmities  of  the  mind. 
The  old  are,  for  the  moment,  young  again;  the 
weakest  vigorous."* 

Kesentment  is  the  deepened  and  prolonged  form 
of  anger ;  and  where  the  simple  emotion  might  be 
impotent  for  the  defense  of  invaded  rights,  this  be- 
comes a  formidable  guardian  of  them.  Those  who 
might  brave  the  temporal  heat  of  anger,  would 
yet  shrink  from  the  sustained  energy  of  resent- 
ment. 

Indignation,  in  the  twofold  import  which  it 
seems  to  bear,  is  simply  a  modification  of  anger. 
As  an  individual  emotion,  it  may  be  defined  to  be 
anger  restraining  itself  from  a  sense  of  the  un- 
worthiness  of  the  object  exciting  it — as  when  we 
feel  indignant  at  some  affront  offered  us — a  kind 
of  magnanimous  anger.  But  it  seems  to  be  most 
characteristically  a  social  emotion — anger  propa- 
gating itself  in  the  social  body,  at  the  sight  or  the 
recital  of  some  great  wrong  done.  In  such  a  case 
the  common  heart  is  stirred,  and  drawn  forth  in  an 
attitude  of  resistance.  The  injury  committed  kin- 
dles a  widespread  feeling,  which  gathers  strength 
as  it  passes  from  heart  to  heart,  and  finally  flames 

*  BROWN'S  Lectures,  tenth  edit.,  pp.  419,  420. 


E  MOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN-       267 

forth  in  a  glow  of  indignant  opposition,  before 
which  the  sternest  injustice  must  tremble,  and 
which  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  strongest  safe- 
guards of  social  virtue  and  happiness.  At  the 
same  time,  as  Dr.  Brown  has  acutely  pointed  out, 
there  is  an  admirably  benevolent  provision  in  the 
working  of  this  emotion,  whereby  it  is  prevented 
becoming  that  inconvenient  and  excessive  senti- 
ment— passing  over  into  acts  of  injustice,  perhaps 
worse  than  those  against  which  it  was  directed — 
which  it  would  be  otherwise  ever  apt  to  become. 
It  is  only  by  some  very  flagrant  wrong  that  it  is 
powerfully  excited,  and,  for  the  most  part,  it  tends 
speedily  to  expend  itself.  Were  it  different — were 
members  of  the  same  community  not  only  disposed 
to  share  in  feelings  of  anger  for  each  other's  wrong?, 
but  to  experience  such  feelings  with  the  same  readi- 
ness, and  in  the  same  proportion,  as  the  special 
sufferer,  the  consequences  would  be  utterly  destruc- 
tive. There  would  then  be  no  check  to  individual 
anger,  which,  propagating  itself  with  an  ever-kin- 
dling force,  would  swell  to  a  mischievous  and  over- 
bearing height.  Indignation  would  no  longer  be 
a  privilege,  but  an  intolerable  burden.  "  The  zeal 
of  the  knight  of  La  Mancha,  who  had  many  giants 
to  vanquish,  and  many  captive  princesses  to  free, 
might  leave  him  still  some  moments  of  peace ;  but 
if  all  the  wrongs  of  all  the  injured  were  to  be  felt 
by  us  as  our  own,  with  the  same  ardent  resentment 


268  THEISM. 

and  eagerness  of  revenge,  our  knight-errantry  would 
be  far  more  oppressive ;  and  though  we  might  kill 
a  few  moral  giants,  and  free  a  few  princesses,  so 
many  more  would  still  remain,  unslain  and  un- 
freed,  that  we  should  have  little  satisfaction  even 
in  our  few  successes.  How  admirably  provident, 
then,  is  the  Author  of  our  nature,  not  merely  in  the 
emotions  with  the  susceptibility  of  which  He  has 
endowed  us,  but  in  the  very  proportioning  of  these 
emotions  so  as  to  produce  the  greatest  good  at  the 
least  expense  even  of  momentary  suffering."* 

In  ascending  among  the  higher  emotions,  which 
no  longer  merely  tend  to  conserve  life,  but  to  de- 
velop and  advance  it,  we  reach  a  region  where  the 
unceasing  confluence  of  the  phenomena  seems  al- 
most to  defy  attempts  at  analysis  and  grouping. 
The  simplest  which  present  themselves  are,  per- 
haps, those  of  which  the  element  of  complacency 
or  satisfaction  may  stand  as  the  type.  This  ele- 
ment of  emotion  might  have  taken  first  rank  in 
our  enumeration,  both  on  account  of  its  compre- 
hensiveness, and  its  being  so  directly  suited  to  our 
purpose.  It  abounds  in  the  lower  animals,  dis- 
playing itself  in  frequent  playfulness  and  pervad- 
ing happiness.  In  man,  its  range  is  very  diversi- 
fied, from  the  mere  rude  contentment  which  is 
half  corporeal,  to  the  cheerfulness  which  sheds  a 
daily  sunshine  on  the  heart,  the  gladness  which 

*  BROWN'S  Lectures,  tenth  edit.,  p.  421. 


E  M  0  T*I  V  E    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       269 

claps  its  hands,  the  delight  which  flashes  with  a 
quick  and  outbursting  warmth,  the  most  exalted 
joy,  and  the  most  spiritual  rapture.  It  may  be 
called  the  normal  expression  of  the  emotional 
power.  It  marks  the  tone  which  in  health  and 
security  this  power  gives  forth — -just  as  pleasura- 
bleness,  in  the  same  case,  is  the  proper  expression 
of  sensation.  The  natural  condition  of  the  one 
and  of  the  other,  when  no  invasion  has  taken  place 
of  the  life  which  they  manifest,  is  a  feeling  of  en- 
joyment. This,  as  already  observed,  is  a  fact  of 
the  highest  significance  for  our  subject,  speaking, 
in  the  most  convincing  language,  of  the  goodness 
of  the  Creator  of  a  life  so  fraught  with  happiness. 

It  is  true  that  here,  as  along  the  whole  line  of 
sensibility,  there  is  an  opposite  side — a  shadow 
tracing  the  brightness.  There  is  a  parallel  group 
of  emotions  of  an  antagonistic  character,  at  least  as 
varied  in  their  range  as  those  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking — from  the  tempered  vein  of  sadness, 
and  the  quick  acuteness  of  regret,  to  the  dark 
brooding  of  melancholy,  the^  vehement  flow  of  sor- 
row, the  bitterness  of  anguish,  and  the  agony  of 
remorse.  But — not  to  speak  of  the  strange  element 
of  enjoyment  which  often  lies  concealed  in  some 
of  these  painful  emotions,  nor  yet,  just  now,  of 
their  disciplinary  virtue,  often  converting  them 
into  the  highest  good — we  merely  point  here  to 
the  fact  of  their  being,  as  on  their  very  front  they 


270  THEISM. 

so  obviously  bear  to  be,  invaders  of  the  natural 
life  of  emotion.  They  emerge  as  elements  of  dis- 
order and  conflict,  interfering  with  the  free  flow 
of  emotional  activity,  and  so  present  themselves, 
from  the  first,  as  difficulties  requiring  a  higher  cal- 
culus for  solution  than  that  which  their  own  nature 
simply  affords.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  meaning 
which  such  phenomena  of  suffering  bear  to  all 
who  most  thoughtfully  contemplate  human  exist- 
ence. They  are  recognized  as  out  of  the  course 
of  the  Divine  order,  as  seeming  contradictions  to 
it,  but  not,  by  any  means,  as  per  se  destroying  that 
order,  and  making  it  a  nullity.  They  are  recog- 
nized as  anomalies  needing  explanation  (further 
than  what  they  contain  in  themselves),  but  not  as 
absolute  contrarieties  entitled  to  negative  the  good, 
with  which  they  appear  at  variance.  To  all  who 
have  gone  beyond  the  mere  surface  of  speculation, 
the  good  is  felt,  under  whatever  appearances  to  the 
contrary,  to  be  the  Divine  order,  of  which  the  evil 
is  an  invasion.*  The  parallel  existence  of  evil  is 
not  entitled  to  set  aside  the  good,  but  only  to  arrest 
us  in  our  full  conclusions  regarding  it.  It  does  not 
destroy  our  theodicy — it  only  leaves  it  imperfect. 
The  Divine  meaning  of  nature,  on  the  very  lowest 

*  The  bearing  of  this  thought — which  goes  to  the  very  root 
of  Theism,  and  the  logically  consistent  denial  of  which  involves, 
as  it  may  chance,  Atheism  or  Pantheism — will  be  more  fully 
considered  in  the  sequel.  So  much  seemed  here  inevitably  sug- 
gested by  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  under  consideration. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       271 

view,  is  not  altogether  doubtful  and  contradictory, 
but  only  incomplete. 

There  is  -an  important  class  of  emotions  which 
relate  themselves  by  an  intelligible  process  to  those 
now  considered.  Conscious  complacency,  or  the 
simple  emotion  turned  back  upon  itself  in  contem- 
plation— what  we  commonly  call  self-complacency 
— would  seem  to  be  their  common  basis.  Such 
emotions  as  gladness,  joy,  rapture,  are  eminently 
distinguished  for  their  unconscious  character. 
They  are  all  self-forgetting.  The  emotive  capac- 
ity in  them  overflows  round  some  other  object ; 
and  the  moment  the  overflow  ceases,  and  returns 
upon  itself,  the  pleasurable  feeling  so  far  disap- 
pears. Happiness  shrinks  from  self- contemplation ; 
and  we  may  thus  see  the  rationale  of  the  reaction 
that  often  takes  place  in  pleasurable  emotion  of  an 
excessive  kind.  The  tide  of  feeling  having  passed 
far  out,  exhausting  itself  in  the  effort,  is  naturally 
liable  to  retreat  upon  itself  to  a  corresponding  ex- 
tent. In  the  purely  antagonistic  emotions,  as  will 
be  seen  on  the  least  reflection,  self  is  all-predomi- 
nant and  obtrusive.  The  emotive  capacity,  instead 
of  passing  forth  toward  another,  is  concentrated 
within ;  and  it  is  this  feeling  of  self-concentration 
which  in  melancholy,  and  especially  in  remorse, 
constitutes  the  characteristic  misery  of  these  emo- 
tions. In  the  class  of  emotions  to  which  we  now 
pass,  the  element  of  self  appears  also  .obtrusive,  but 


272  THEISM. 

not  in  the  same  way.  It  is  not  in  them  necessarily 
or  characteristically  associated  with  pain ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  common  ground  of  all  of  them  would 
seem  to  be  a  reflex  feeling  of  pleasure.  Yet  they 
have,  it  is  remarkable,  in  their  reflex  character,  a 
constant  tendency  to  pass  over  to  a  painful  excess. 

Of  this  class  of  emotions,  pride  is  one  of  the 
most  distinguishing.  In  its  most  general  form,  it 
seems  to  be  simply  self  talcing  the  measure  of 
its  own  claims  alongside  those  of  others.  It  al- 
ways implies  this  element  of  comparison.  When 
the  comparison  is  made  with  fairness,  we  recognize 
the  propriety  of  the  feeling — as  in  the  common 
expression,  a  proper  pride.  Where,  again,  the 
comparison  is  grossly  mistaken  and  over-estimated 
by  self  in  its  own  favor,  the  feeling  assumes  that 
excessive  form,  in  which  it  becomes  so  odious  to 
others,  and  often  such  a  source  of  misery  to  its  sub- 
ject. "Vanity  seems  again  to  be  the  simple  pamper- 
ing of  self-complacency — self  dwelling  on  its  own 
image  till  it  can  scarcely  find  interest  or  beauty  in 
any  other. 

Directly  converse  to  such  emotions  are  those  of 
humility  and  modesty.  The  former  may  be  de- 
fined to  be  the  simple  opposite  of  pride — the  re- 
tirement of  self  from  the  assertion  even  of  rightful 
claims  which  it  might  prefer  before  others.  It,  too, 
seems  always  to  involve  an  element  of  compari- 
son ;  and,  in  a  similar  manner  to  pride,  it  may  so 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       273 

greatly  and  obviously  mistake  the  comparison  as 
to  become  disagreeably  excessive.  The  only  case 
in  which  it  can  never  do  so,  is  in  reference  to  the 
Supreme  Being,  before  whom  the  most  extreme 
retirement  of  self  is  not  only  appropriate,  but  de- 
manded. And  hence  we  recognize  the  primary 
importance  of  this  emotion  in  religion.  Modesty 
is  also,  may  we  not  say,  a  species  of  self-denial — 
self-shrinking  from  the  acknowledgment  of  claims 
of  which  it  is  yet  dimly  conscious.  It  is  self- 
repressive,  peculiarly ;  and  yet  self  does  not,  as  in 
humility,  retire  out  of  sight.  It  is  this  curious 
balance  of  emotion,  in  which  self  is  negatived,  and 
yet,  with  a  vaguely  conscious  justice,  stands  for- 
ward (the  internal  conflict  betraying  itself  in  the 
suffusion  of  the  face  with  blushes),  which  gives 
to  modesty  that  special  charm  which  all  recognize 
in  it. 

The  large  and  diversified  group  of  emotions  of 
which  tenderness  is  the  most  diffused  element,  and 
love  the  most  expressive  type,  may  next  engage  at- 
tention. They  operate  over  human  life  with  a 
vast  influence,  and  invest  it  with  its  most  solemn 
and  beautiful  interest.  They  are  all  of  a  social 
character,  binding  the  race  into  families,  and  per- 
vading it  from  rank  to  rank  with  reciprocal  rela- 
tions of  the  most  happy  and  beneficent  kind. 

There  is  no  range  of  emotion  more  enlarged  or 
more  minutely  subdivided  than  this  of  tenderness, 
12* 


274  THEISM. 

not  to  speak  of  the  antagonistic  range  of  emotions 
which  here  also  lies  alongside.  All  the  affections 
are  based  on  it,  from  the  mere  fondness  of  infancy 
to  the  exquisite  passionateness  of  sexual  and  pa- 
rental regard.  It  embraces  equally  the  tranquil 
interest  of  friendship  and  the  lofty  zeal  of  patriot- 
ism. It  is  the  chord  which  vibrates  in  the  warm- 
heartedness of  the  host,  the  geniality  of  the  old 
schoolfellow,  and  the  kindness  of  neighborhood. 
Compassion  and  sympathy  are  among  its  most  in- 
fluential manifestations,  springing  from  a  fountain 
of  good  in  the  social  bosom,  and  spreading  around 
them,  as  they  flow,  unnumbered  blessings.  Ee- 
spect,  esteem,  veneration,  blending  as  they  do  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  merely  intellectual  elements, 
may  all  be  traced  back  to  it ;  and  finally,  worship 
is  best  expressed  by  the  name  of  love,  in  which  at 
once  the  emotion  culminates,  and  of  which  through- 
out it  testifies.  This  form  of  moral  feeling  is  the 
flower  of  the  emotive  capacity.  It  is  the  richest 
and  worthiest  outgoing  of  man's  spiritual  activity, 
the  course  of  which  is  every  where  and  always 
more  continually  beneficent,  and  which,  in  this  its 
inexhaustibleness,  or  rather  ever-accumulating  force 
of  good,  contains  the  pledge  of  its  own  peculiar 
immortality.  In  its  more  special  meaning  it  has 
been  supposed*  to  imply  not  merely  the  going 
forth  of  good  toward  an  object,  but  the  meeting  of 

*  Dr.  M'ViCAH's  Inquiry,  p.  127. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       275 

good  in  that  object,  the  term  of  benevolence  being 
used  to  express  the  love  of  that  which  in  itself 
does  not  contain  any  love -worthiness.  There  is 
only,  as  it  were,  room  for  love  after  benevolence 
has  accomplished  its  end,  in  bringing  the  object 
into  a  state  of  well-being  or  love- worthiness.  There 
is  something  in  this  distinction,  and  we  yet  ques- 
tion the  propriety  of  so  fixing  down  or  confining 
the  name  of  love.  The  distinction  seems  to  us  to 
be  not  between  one  species  or  shade  of  affection 
and  another,  but  rather  between  a  complete  and 
incomplete  enjoyment  or  fruition  of  the  same  affec- 
tion. Love  may  certainly,  in  the  purest  and  loftiest 
sense,  go  forth  toward  wretchedness,  but  it  can  not, 
so  to  speak,  complete  itself  toward  it  by  embracing 
it  till  the  wretchedness  is  turned  away.  So  far, 
however,  we  apprehend,  is  love  from  being  post- 
poned till  this  result,  that  it  is  the  very  energy  and 
activity  of  the  love  concentrated  on  the  object 
which  accomplish  the  result. 

The  pleasure  which  attends  the  exercise  of  the 
benevolent  affections  has  been  rightly  considered 
a  special  proof  of  the  Divine  goodness.  The  mere 
existence  of  these  affections  sufficiently  shows  that 
goodness.  The  mere  presence  of  love  in  human 
life,  pervading  and  beautifying  it  in  so  many  forms, 
attests  the  presence  of  love  in  the  great  Source  of 
that  life.  But  the  fact  of  our  not  only  having 
such  emotions  implanted  in  us,  but  of  our  deriving 


276  THEISM. 

from  their  exercise  such  pure  delight,  while  the 
gratification  of  the  opposite  evil  emotions  is  accom- 
panied with  pain,  is  a  fact  of  peculiar  significance. 
For  what  is  its  language  ?  Does  it  not  say  with 
clearest  force  that  the  good  alone  is  divine  ?  "We 
are  so  constituted,  that  in  imparting  happiness 
through  the  channel  of  any  one  of  the  benevolent 
emotions,  we  ourselves  experience  happiness ; 
while,  on  the  contrary,  through  the  indulgence  of 
envy  or  hatred,  or  any  other  of  the  malevolent 
emotions,  we  ourselves  suffer  in  imparting  suffer- 
ing. So  radically  is  the  good  fixed  in  our  natures 
that  its  violation  thus  avenges  itself.  Putting  out 
of  question,  then,  in  the  mean  time,  how  such  evil 
affections  emerge  in  human  nature — looking  only 
at  its  actual  constitution — it  seems  impossible  to 
imagine  how  it  could  have  borne  stronger  testi- 
mony to  the  Divine  goodness  ;  for  it  not  only  ex- 
presses the  good,  but  delights  in  it.  The  good  is 
not  only,  notwithstanding  all  that  may  be  said  to 
the  contrary,  the  most  prominent  fact  in  human 
nature,  but  it  thus  approves  itself  to  be  the  only 
normal  action  of  human  nature.  Our  delight  in 
well-doing  says,  as  powerful  as  it  is  possible  to  say 
it,  that  man  was  made  to  be  good  and  to  do  good  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  that  the  Author  of  his  being  is 
good. 

The  partial  happiness  that  lies  in  the  indulgence 
of  evil  affections,  expressed  in  the  word  gratifica- 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       277 


tion,  equally  used  with  reference  to  them,  does  not 
at  all  militiate  against  this  conclusion,  for  this  is 
simply  an  accidental  result  of  their  accomplished 
activity.  They  and  all  our  mental  activities  can 
not  express  themselves  successfully  without  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  enjoyment ;  but  such  is  the  essen- 
tial destructiveness  of  the  evil  that  its  very  gratifi- 
cation is  in  the  end  its  most  perfect  misery.  Its 
continued  successes,  affording  a  minimum  of  enjoy- 
ment all  along  its  course — as  in  the  case  of  the 
drunkard,  or  the  continued  gratification  of  hatred 
or  cruelty — become  its  accumulating  curse.  Nature 
thus  every  where  bears  her  testimony  against  the 
evil,  stamping  it  with  her  reprobation  amid  what- 
ever apparent  triumph — uttering  her  voice  against 
it,  however  it  may  exalt  itself— and  so  declaring, 
in  the  most  emphatic  and  unceasing  language, 
that  the  good  alone  is  divine ;  or  in  other  words, 
that  God  is  good,  and  alone  loveth  good. 

The  foregoing  ranges  of  emotional  activity  are 
found  for  the  most  part  represented  throughout  the 
sphere  of  animal  existence,  while  yet  only  reach- 
ing their  highest  expression  in  man.  We  now 
approach  a  class  of  emotions  which  there  is  reason 
to  think  are  peculiar  to  the  human  mind — a  class 
which,  for  our  general  purpose,  may  be  sufficiently 
designated  as  the  emotions  of  taste — including  our 
sentiments  of  harmony,  beauty,  sublimity,  and 
their  opposites.  We  can  only  here  indicate  the 


278  THEISM. 

fact  of  these  emotions,  and  their  bearing  on  our 
subject;  their  analysis,  it  is  well  known,  involving 
some  of  the  most  keenly-contested  problems  in 
psychological  science.  It  is  sufficient,  in  our  point 
of  view,  to  observe  their  high  use  in  man's  consti- 
tution. They  are,  and  have  ever  been,  recognized 
among  its  most  delightful  springs  of  elevated  pro- 
gress. They  minister  purely  to  mental  gratifica 
tion  and  culture,  and  have  no  lower  function  in 
reference  to  our  mere  animal  nature,  a  fact  which 
sufficiently  accounts  for  their  being  confined  to 
man.  This  feature  of  the  emotions  of  taste  has  been 
pointed  out  with  his  accustomed  acuteness  by  Dr. 
Thomas  Brown,  and  the  appropriate  theological 
inference  so  well  expressed  by  him  that  we  gladly 
avail  ourselves  of  his  language.*  "In  no  part  of 
our  nature,"  he  says,  "  is  the  pure  benevolence  of 
Heaven  more  strikingly  conspicuous  than  in  our 
susceptibility  of  the  emotions-  of  this  class.  The 
pleasure  which  they  afford  is  a  pleasure  that  has 


°  Apart  from  the  appropriate  beauty  of  Dr.  Brown's  lan- 
guage, we  have  not  hesitated,  on  another  account,  to  avail  our- 
selves of  it  to  the  extent  we  have  done  in  this  chapter.  It  is 
peculiarly  satisfactory  to  present  the  conclusions  for  which  wo 
naturally  seek  in  the  words  of  one  to  whom  they  came  by  force 
of  their  own  clearness  and  streugth,  while  engaged  in  the  mere 
analysis  of  the  phenomena,  without  any  view  to  their  theolo- 
gical meaning.  It  has  seemed  an  advantage  that  it  should  be 
thus  clearly  seen  that  we  are  not  led  to  impose  a  meaning  on 
the  phenomena  which  they  do  not  in  themselves  naturally  and 
irresistibly  suggest 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       279 

no  immediate  connection  with  the  means  of  pres- 
ervation of  our  animal  existence;  and  which 
shows,  therefore,  though  all  other  proof  were  absent, 
that  the  Deity  who  superaddecl  these  means  of 
delight  must  have  had  some  other  object  in  view 
in  forming  us  as  we  are,  than  the  mere  continuance 
of  a  race  of  beings  who  were  to  save  the  earth 
from  becoming  a  wilderness.  In  consequence  of  these 
emotions,  which  have  made  all  nature  '  beauty  to 
our  eye,  and  music  to  our  ear,'  it  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible for  us  to  look  around  without  feeling  either 
some  happiness  or  some  consolation.  Sensual 
pleasures  soon  pall  even  upon  the  profligate,  who 
seeks  them  in  vain  in  the  means  which  were  accus- 
tomed to  produce  them,  weary  almost  to  disgust 
of  the  very  pleasures  which  he  seeks,  and  yet 
astonished  that  he  does  not  find  them.  The  labors 
of  severer  intellect  if  long  continued,  exhaust  the 
energy  which  they  employ,  and  we  cease  for  a  time 
to  be  capable  of  thinking  accurately,  from  the  very 
intentness  and  accuracy  of  our  thought.  The 
pleasures  of  taste,  however,  by  their  variety  of 
easy  delight,  are  safe  from  the  languor  which 
attends  any  monotonous  or  severe  occupation ;  and 
instead  of  palling  on  the  mind,  they  produce  in  it, 
with  the  very  delight  which  is  present,  a  quicker 
sensibility  to  future  pleasure.  Enjoyment  springs 
from  enjoyment;  and  if  we  have  not  some  deep 
wretchedness  within,  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  us, 


280  THEISM. 

with  the  delightful  resources  which  nature  and  art 
present  to  us,  not  to  be  happy  as  often  as  we  will 
to  be  happy."'35' 

There  is  a  further  large  group  of  emotive  powers, 
whose  special  significance  in  human  life  will  by  no 
means  allow  us  to  pass  them  by.  They  are  dis- 
tinguished from  those  previous  reviewed  by  a 
special  character  of  activity  and  complexity.  The 
mind  no  longer  simply  feels,  but  desires.  A  special 
energy  has  arisen  in  the  bosom,  of  some  simple 
mental  experience,  which  goes  forth,  often  with 
great  force,  in  search  of  its  object.  The  desires, 
therefore,  in  the  emotional  sphere,  are  parallel  to 
the  appetites  in  the  sensational.  In  both,  the  atti- 
tude of  the  mind  is  no  longer  merely  that  of  feeling, 
but  of  wishing. 

Desire  is  almost  endlessly  diversified,  according 
to  its  objects,  which  it  were  in  vain  to  try  to  enu- 
merate. Dr.  Brown  has  summed  up  the  more 
general  and  important  forms  of  desire  in  a  tenfold 
series.  But  if  it  were  necessary  for  us  to  attempt 
such  an  analysis,  it  would  be  easy  to  reduce  them 
to  a  broader  and  more  general  basis.  "We  are  in- 
clined to  think,  indeed,  that,  according  to  a  right 
interpretation  of  the  first  of  Dr.  Brown's  series,  all 
the  others  might  be  considered  simply  modifica- 
tions of  it — viz.,  the  desire  of  life.  If  we  under- 
stand life  to  mean  the  sum  not  only  of  physical 

*  BROWN'S  Lectures,  pp.  393,  394. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       281 

but  of  mental  existence — a  sense  in  which  we  may 
say  it  is  parallel  with  happiness  (every  where,  as  we 
have  seen,  its  proper  correlate) — all  our  desires  will 
be  found  to  be  only  various  forms  of  the  desire  of 
life,  or,  in  other  words,  of  pleasurable  Activity. 
Desire  only  responds  to  pleasure  in  some  shape  or 
another.  Whatever  may  be  the  object,  it  is  only 
as  it  is  seen  to  be  pleasurable  that  it  is  desired. 
The  desire  of  life,  therefore,  in  one  sense,  may  be 
made  to  include  every  other  mode  of  desire. 

Dr.  Brown,  indeed,  seems  to  think  that  there 
may  be  a  desire  of  life — of  simple  existence— apart 
from  any  consideration  of  pleasure  ;*  but  it  appears 
to  us  that  he  has  here  confounded,  with  what  alone 
can  be  properly  called  the  desire  of  life,  the  simple 
movement  of  self-preservation.  This  latter,  how- 
ever, has  no  title  to  stand  as  an  emotion — it  is  a 
mere  blind  ineradicable  instinct.  It  is  so  truly  in- 
eradicable, and  almost  physical  in  its  character, 
that  it  may  be  found  asserting  itself  even  in  the 
hour  of  self-destruction.  The  desire  of  life,  on  the 
contrary,  is  a  special  mental  feeling,  entertained  and 
cherished  with  various  degrees  of  force,  and  capa- 
ble, in  certain  cases,  of  being  altogether  over- 
powered and  destroyed.  And  what  are  our  desires 
of  pleasure  and  of  action  (the  second  and  third  of 
Dr.  Brown's  series),  but  the  desire  of  intenser  forms 
of  life?  And  our  desire  of  knowledge,  what  is  it 

0  BROWN'S  Lectures,  p.  438. 


282  THEISM. 

but  simply  the  desire  of  life  in  a  more  exalted  and 
interesting  character  than  hitherto  experienced? 
And  so  of  power,  which  is  only  the  equation  of 
knowledge ;  and  equally  of  property,  which  is  but 
another  name  for  power.  And  again,  what  is  the 
desire  of  society  but  the  desire  of  life  intensified 
in  a  different  direction — viz.,  from  contact  with 
other  life  ?  As  life  is  essentially  active,  so  is  it  es- 
sentially circulatory — only  reaching  its  full  being 
in  mingling  and  sharing  with  other  life.  The  de- 
sire of  life,  therefore,  involves  the  desire  of  social 
contact  and  circulation.  And  in  a  being  of  intelli- 
gence and  morality  like  man,  we  can  not  imagine 
this  desire  of  contact  with  other  life — of  sharing 
and  mingling  in  it — without  the  desire  of  also  ap- 
proving himself  to  it.  Hearts  meeting  (which  is 
just  moral  life  in  circulation)  can  not  but  seek  to 
commend  themselves  to  each  other ;  and  what  is 
this  but  the  desire  of  the  affection  and  esteem  of 
others  ?  And  in  this  way  we  have  run  over  nearly 
the  whole  of  Dr.  Brown's  series.* 

But  desire  is  not  only  thus  comprehensive  as  an 
emotion  in  relation  to  its  objects;  it  presents  itself, 
moreover,  in  various  important  modifications — such 
as  hope,  expectation,  confidence,  and  ambition. 
Hope  is  one  of  the  most  pervading,  as  it  is  one  of 

*  It  is  needless  to  say  that  we  do  not  claim  for  this  analysis 
any  scientific  worth.  It  may  seem,  indeed,  that  in  making  the  de- 
sire of  life,  as  pleasurable  activity,  the  type  of  our  various  desires, 
we  are  merely  saying  that  desire,  in  all  its  forms,  is  desire. 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       283 

the  most  delightful,  of  all  our  emotions.  It  is  also 
one  of  the  most  thoroughly  educative  of  them  all, 
ever  keeping  the  soul  in  an  attitude  of  forwardness 
— ever  embellishing  with  bright  visions  the  dim 
future,  and  quickening  it  in  their  pursuit.  It  is 
hope  alone  which  sustains  and  upholds  us  amid  the 
actual  difficulties  of  life.  Desire  alone  would  have 
been  comparatively  inadequate  for  such  a  purpose, 
as  it  relates  the  soul  to  its  object  merely  in  an  atti- 
tude of  liking — it  says  merely  that  the  object  is 
good ;  whereas  hope  represents  the  object  not  only 
as  good,  but  as  within  reach — not  only  as  likeable, 
but  also  as  attainable.  Hope  is,  therefore,  not  only 
"  desire  intensified"  (this  will  not  give  in  its  full 
character  the  complex  emotion),  but  desire  with  a 

»new  element  of  strength  in  it,  which  enables  the 
soul  to  go  forth  toward  its  object,  not  only  with 
additional  eagerness,  but  already,  as  it  were,  in 
prospect  to  lay  hold  of  it.  When  we  hope  for  an 
object,  we  always,  indeed,  desire  it  intensely ;  but 
we  have  also  already  a  deeper  interest  in  it — a  more 
personal  relation  to  it,  so  to  speak — than  any  mere 
desire  can  give.  In  expectation,  again,  we  have  a 
still  firmer  and  more  secure  relation  to  the  object, 
and  confidence  is  the  height  of  expectation.  Am- 
bition, on  the  other  hand,  would  seem, to  be  the 
mere  over-growth  of  desire,  carrying  the  rnind  for- 
ward toward  its  object  with  an  energy  which  no 
obstacles  can  turn  aside. 


284  THEISM. 

Curiosity  is  a  special  form  of  the  desire  of 
knowledge  so  important  as  to  deserve  separate  men- 
tion. It  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  provident 
and  benevolent  principles  of  our  mental  constitu- 
tion. It  is  the  harbinger  of  intelligence  in  the  in- 
fant breast ;  and,  nursed  by  continually  new  incite- 
ments, it  becomes  the  ever-strengthening  spring  of 
mental  progress.  It  may  be  truly  said  to  be  inex- 
haustible in  its  workings,  pausing  merely  to  collect 
itself  for  a  fresh  advance,  and — what  especially 
serves  to  reveal  the  benevolence  of  the  hand  which 
implanted  it — evolving  ever,  as  it  operates,  fresh 
pleasure.  "  Can  any  thing,"  says  Lord  Brougham, 
"be  more  perfectly  contrived  as  an  instrument  of 
instruction,  and  an  instrument  precisely  adapted 
to  the  want  of  knowledge,  by  being  more  powerful 
in  proportion  to  the  ignorance  in  which  we  are  ? 
Hence  it  is  the  great  means  by  which  above  all,  in 
early  infancy,  we  are  taught  every  thing  most 
necessary  for  our  physical  as  well  as  moral  exist- 
ence. In  riper  years  it  smoothes  the  way  for  fur- 
ther acquirements  to  most  men  ;  to  some,  in  whom 
it  is  strongest,  it  opens  the  paths  of  science ;  but 
in  all,  without  any  exception,  it  prevails  at  the 
beginning  of  life  so  powerfully  as  to  make  them 
learn  the  faculties  of  their  own  bodies,  and  the 
general  properties  of  those  around  them — an 
amount  of  knowledge,  which,  for  its  extent  and  its 
practical  usefulness,  very  far  exceeds,  though  the 


EMOTIVE    STRUCTURE    IN    MAN.       285 

• 

most  ignorant  possess  it,  whatever  additions  the 
greatest  philosophers  are  enabled  to  build  upon  it 
in  the  longest  course  of  the  most  successful  inves- 
tigations."* 

The  phenomena  of  desire,  generally,  are  among 
the  most  characteristically  benevolent  in  their  in- 
tention of  any  in  the  human  constitution.  Apart 
from  them,  it  may  be  possible  to  conceive  human 
life  prolonged  through  the  force  of  the  mere  in- 
stinct of  preservation,  emotionally  defended  on  all 
sides  as  it  is ;  but,  without  desire,  how  stupid  and 
aimless  a  thing  would  life  have  been !  The  great- 
est intellectual  capacity  would  have  been  a  mere 
slumbering  potentiality — a  mere  vague  dream,  or 
rather  nightmare,  of  power,  from  which  there  could 
have  been  no  awakening.  But,  as  it  is,  desire,  ex- 
pressing itself  with  the  first  movement  of  life,  and 
strengthening  with  its  growth,  becomes  the  great 
educator  of  all  our  other  activities.  Under  its 
quickening  operation  it  is  that  the  helpless  child  is 
trained  to  various  degrees  of  manly  or  womanly 
culture  and  excellence — from  the  skillful  craftsman 
to  the  lofty  poet  or  philosopher — from  the  gentle 
doer  of  good  deeds  at  home  to  the  arduous  and  un- 
tiring philanthropist.  It  is  thus  truly  the  unslack- 
ening  spring  of  human  progress,  relaxing  not  even 
in  the  hour  of  death ;  but,  amid  the  withdrawal 
of  all  the  objects  of  present  desire,  carrying 

*  Discourse  on  Natural  Theology,  pp.  55,  56, 


286  THEISM. 

» 

the  soul  forward  in  hope  and  triumph  to  other 
and  higher  regions  of  mental  and  moral  de- 
velopment.* 

*  "  They  desire  a  bettei   country,  that  is,  an  heavenly  " — 
Heb.  xL  16. 


SECTION    III, 


MORAL    INTUITIVE    EVIDENCE 


§  III.— CHAPTER  I. 

MORAL    INTUITIVE    EVIDENCE. 

THE  theistic  evidence  universally  runs  back  into 
a  region  of  First  Truths  or  Principles.  It  rests 
only  on  a  definite  spiritual  philosophy,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  outset.  It  remains  to  be  further  seen 
how  it  only  attains  to  its  highest  force  and  signifi- 
cance in  the  same  region.  An  attentive  examina- 
tion of  certain  features  of  our  spiritual  life  will  be 
found  to  yield  a  set  of  theistic  elements  of  a  pecu- 
liarly direct  and  important  kind,  which  are  neces- 
sary to  complete  our  evidence,  and  to  carry  up- 
ward the  .conceptions  of  power,  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, already  unfolded,  into  the  full  conception  of 
God. 

We  deem  it  unnecessary  to  enter  into  any  ques- 
tion as  to  the  separate  force  and  value  of  this  de- 
partment of  evidence.  All  such  questions  are, 
according  to  our  view,  quite  irrelevant.  For  the 
genuine  apprehension  of  the  theistic  evidence  is  not 
that  of  a  series  of  separate  and  independent  proofs, 
13 


290  THEISM. 

but  that  of  a  great  scheme  of  argument  presenting 
itself  under  a  variety  of  aspects.  All  special  in- 
stances of  design  derive  their  conclusive  force  from 
certain  principles  ;  and  these  principles  again  must 
be  seen  in  practical  manifestation,  in  order  to  bring 
before  us  a  lively  and  clear  impression  of  the 
Divine  existence  and  attributes. 

In  assigning  a  distinctive  name  to  this  section, 
we  do  not  mean,  therefore,  to  detach  it  from  our 
inductive  scheme  of  evidence.  We  mean  simply 
to  point  out  the  distinctive  range  of  inquiry  before 
us,  which  is  sufficiently  marked  off  from  that  in 
which  we  have  been  engaged.  We  are  no  longer 
merely  to  be  concerned  with  facts  from  which  we 
are  warranted  to  infer  Divine  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, but  with  facts  which,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  re- 
veal to  us  God,  which  bring  God  before  us  intui- 
tively, rather  than  in  the  ordinary  inductive  way. 
We  enter  among  those  prime  elements  of  our  spir- 
itual constitution  which  are  the  appropriate  organs 
of  the  theistic  conception.  This  conception,  in  its 
radical  form  of  cause,  took  its  rise  in  this  region, 
and  here  no  less  is  it  found  to  complete  itself. 

This  may  serve  to  explain  the  views  of  some  of 
our  highest  thinkers  as  to  the  supposed  conclusive 
force  of  the  moral,  in  comparison  with  all  other 
evidence  for  the  being  of  a  God.  Kant,  after  sub- 
mitting to  a  destructive  criticism  all  the  other 
modes  of  theistic  evidence,  as  separately  apprehend- 


MOKAL    INTUITIVE    EVIDENCE.      291 


ed  in  his  day,  made  the  existence  of  God  a  postu- 
late of  our  moral  being ;  and  Sir  W.  Hamilton  has 
expressly  said  that  "  the  only  valid  arguments  for 
the  existence  of  a  God,  and  for  the  immortality  of 
the  human  soul,  rest  on  the  ground  of  man's  moral 
nature."*  Now,  in  so  far  as  such  views  merely 
imply  that  to  the  region  of  moral  consciousness 
must  be  traced  the  foundation  of  the  theistic  argu- 
ment, and  its  peculiar  seat,  we  are  prepared  to  co- 
incide with  them.  But  we  can  not  assent  to  any 
view  which  would  limit  the  evidence  to  this  region. 
It  finds  here  its  peculiar  home ;  but  it  by  no  means 
stops  here.  Springing  from  the  depths  of  our  mor- 
al consciousness,  it  is  taken  up  by  the  intellectual 
common  sense  ;  and  the  special  argument  from  de- 
sign is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  application 
which  is  thus  made  of  the  primary  theistic  princi- 
ple. It  becomes  us  not  to  forget  the  origin  of  the 
principle — through  which  alone  the  idea  of  design 
is  tenable — but  it  becomes  us  also  to  acknowledge 
the  appropriate  value  and  the  clear  and  impressive 
bearing  of  this  idea,  as  applied  to  the  display  of 
the  Divine  attributes.  The  theistic  evidence  is  only 
seen  in  its  full  strength  when  it  is  thus  recognized 
in  its  full  comprehensiveness. 

*  Philosophical  Discussions,  p.  695. 


§  III— CHAPTER  II. 

PBEEDOM  —  DIVINE   PERSONALITY. 

THE  fact  which  demands  our  consideration  in  this 
chapter  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  not  only  in 
respect  of  the  theistic  meaning  which  still  remains 
to  be  drawn  from  it,  but  as  constituting,  moreover, 
the  real  foundation  of  our  whole  evidence.  For 
already,  in  our  preliminary  chapters,  its  reality  was 
presupposed,  and  the  weight  of  our  initiative  con- 
clusion made  to  rest  upon  it.  It  is,  therefore,  emi- 
nently the  theistic  fact  round  which,  as  their 
rational  nucleus,  all  the  others  gather. 

The  exact  character  of  the  fact  is  to  be  carefully 
kept  in  view.  It  is  of  this  sort :  Is  man's  rational 
being  essentially  distinct  from  nature  ?  Does  it 
constitute  a  source  of  activity,  in  a  sense  altogether 
unique  and  contradistinguished  from  any  other 
movements  we  perceive  in  nature  ?  While  the 
latter,  through  all  its  range,  is  a  mere  series  of  se- 
quences, of  arrangements,  and  re-arrangements,  in 
the  same  unbroken  flow,  is  there  in  man  some 


FEEEDOM  —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.   293 

thing  wholly  different,  which  can  not  be  resolved 
into  any  mere  play  of  sequences,  but  constitutes  a 
source  of  power  ?  Is  there,  in  short,  a  soul  in  man  ? 
This  seems  to  us  the  last  and  simplest  reduction  of 
the  question.  According  to  the  affirmative  view 
of  this  question,  mind,  in  its  full  meaning,  is  not 
only  something  specifically  different  in  its  manifesta- 
tions from  matter,  but  something  in  its  root  and  char- 
acter essentially  contradistinguished  from  matter. 
In  the  various  forms,  indeed,  in  which  it  expresses 
itself,  or  becomes  phenomenal,  it  obeys  the  same 
law  of  sequences  which  obtains  among  all  other 
phenomena  ;  but  in  its  spring  and  source  it  wholly 
evades  this  merely  natural  law,  and  refuses  to  be 
bound  by  it.  It  is  only  in  this  apprehension  of 
mind  that  we  found  that  fact  of  efficiency  with 
which  we  set  out,  and  without  which  our  argument 
has  no  rational  basis  whereon  to  rest. 

This  fact  of  a  free  rational  activity,  or  soul  in 
man,  is  implied  in  every  form  of  spiritual  philoso- 
phy, and  appears  to  constitute  the  essential  basis 
of  all  theology.  It  has,  however,  beyond  doubt, 
been  greatly  obscured  by  certain  views  which  have 
long  held  sway,  both  in  philosophy  and  in  theol- 
ogy. These  views  have  been  all  the  more  power- 
ful that  they  express  so  far  an  undoubted  truth, 
and  have  been  supposed  to  bear  with  a  peculiar 
effect  upon  the  confirmation  of  certain  Christian 
doctrines.  In  so  far  as  they  can  be  held  consist- 


294  THEISM. 

ently  with  our  fundamental  position — and  we  can 
not  imagine  any  Christian  necessitarian  denying 
that  position — we  have,  of  course,  no  controversy 
with  such  views.  It  must  at  the  same  time  be  ob- 
served, and  deserves  to  be  carefully  considered  in 
such  a  discussion  as  the  present,  that  whatever 
consistency  there  may  be  between  a  true  doctrine 
of  necessity,  and  that  assertion  of  a  free  rational 
activity  in  man  which  is  the  basis  of  our  argument, 
and  however  that  doctrine  may  be  authorized  by 
great  names,  it  is  yet  in  no  sense  a  Christian  doc- 
trine ;  and  that  those  truths  of  Scripture,  in  whose 
defense  it  has  been  supposed  to  be  triumphantly 
wielded,  are  wholly  independent  of  any  logical 
strength  thence  derived,  as  they  had,  in  fact,  as- 
sumed their  place  in  the  great  scheme  of  Protestant 
belief  long  before  any  of  those  formal  enunciations 
of  the  doctrine  of  necessity,  to  which  so  much 
weight  has  been  attributed. 

The  best  way  of  clearing  up  the  bearing  of  such 
views  upon  our  position  will  be  by  a  brief  re-state- 
ment and  examination  of  it.  We  shall  approach 
it  from  facts  formerly  reached.  Already,  in  the 
mere  presence  of  sentient  and  even  organic  life, 
we  found,  in  some  sense,  a  center  of  action.  Ev- 
ery such  existence  develops  itself  from  within. 
But  this  development  is,  in  such  cases,  bound  to 
%n  immutable  necessity  of  nature.  It  is  through- 
out physically  conditioned.  The  evolution  of  self 


FREEDOM  —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       295 

is,  on  this  lower  platform  of  life,  a  mere  determin- 
ation of  natural  causes.  The  question  before  us  is 
one  which  concerns  the  character  of  this  self-evo- 
lution in  man.  Is  it  in  him  nothing  more  than  it 
is  in  the  lower  animals — the  mere  play  of  nature, 
"  the  mere  result  of  physical  succession  ?"  or  is  it 
something  wholly  peculiar,  and,  if  not  independent 
of  nature,  yet  by  no  means  subject  to  it  ?  Do  we 
find,  in  short,  within  us  not  merely  a  power  of  ac- 
tion, under  the  impulse  of  physical  causes,  but  a 
power  of  action  which  owns  no  law  ab  extra,  but  is 
what  we  call  free?  That  we  have  some  such 
power  of  free  action,  not  merely  a  feeling  of  self, 
which  would  seem  to  be  the  condition  of  all  men- 
tal existence,  but  a  feeling  of  what  has  been  called 
self-determination  or  choice,  can  not  admit  of  dis- 
pute. Every  one  must  allow  that^  he  has  such  a 
power  of  doing  what  he  will.  All  language  and 
all  social  practice  imply  so  much. 

But  this,  it  is  said,  is  little  to  the  point:  for 
while  it  is  admitted  that  man  seems  to  act  freely — 
nay,  that,  in  a  certain  sense,  he  does  so  act — it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  his  action  always  follows  .the 
strongest  motive,  just  as  effect  follows  cause.  In- 
asmuch as  he  can  not  act  without  motive,  the  mo- 
tive felt  by  him  to  be  the  strongest  at  the  time, 
and  under  which  he  does  act,  is  the  cause  of  his 
action.  His  rational  activity  analyzed  is  found  to 
1)3  every  where  encompassed  by  a  subtle  atmos- 


THEISM* 


phere  of  motives  strictly  and  rigorously 
tioning  it  AH  the  particular  feds  of  bis  mental 
life  are  thus  only  links  in  a  great  chain  of  neces- 
sity, although  he  may  not  feel  them  to  be  so. 
Tne  law  of  cause  and  effect  obtains  among  them, 
and  binds  them  all,  no  less  smety  than  it  is  found 
to  regulate  and  control  all  other  facts.  In  these 
views  there  is  an  amount  of  truth  which  none  now 
dispute,  however  they  may  object  to  the  language 
in  which  it  is  sometimes  expressed.  It  is  undenia- 
ble that  man's  intellectual  and  moral  being,  in  all 
its  most  subtle  and  complex  manifestations,  shows 
the  same  order  that  we  every  where  discover  in 
nature.  It  was  our  special  aim,  in  previous  chap- 
ters. to  expose,  in  some  degree,  this  order.  If  this, 
therefore,  be  all  that  is  any  where  meant  by  the 
>  doctrine  of  necessity,  that  doctrine  must  be  held  as 
expressive  of  an  important  truth.  But  something 
far  more  than  this  is  maintained  by  most  necessita- 
rians, and  seems  to  be  logically  implied  in  the  doc- 
trine, They  mean  not  only  to  assert  that  man's 
rational  activity  displays  itself  under  the  same  law 
of  cause  and  effect  as  the  course  of  nature  does, 
but  that  there  is  really  nothing  more  in  it  than 
this  display.  Tolition  goes  forth  under  motive  ; 
motive!  again,  is  dependent  on  organization,  or  at 
least  on  some  external  cause;  and  this  is  aD.  The 
whole  question  plainly  lies  in  this  higher  region. 
What  constitutes  motive?  What  is  the  spring  of 


FREEDOM  —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       297 

the  order  wliich  is  universally  admitted  to  obtain 
among  the  facts  of  man's  spiritual  being,  no  less 
than  among  all  other  facts  ?  Is  that  spring  in  na- 
ture, and  bound  to  its  immutable  sequences  ?  or  is 
it  deep  in  the  central  being  of  the  man  himself, 
and  essentially  separated  from  nature  ?  The  ma- 
terialistic necessitarian  holds  as  his  cardinal  princi- 
ple the  former  of  these  views.  He  knows  nothing 
beyond  the  mere  series  of  phenomena  which  col- 
lectively he  may  call  Mind.  Any  spiritual  unit  or 
soul  beneath  the  multiplicity,  and  therein  express- 
ing itself,  while  yet  essentially  distinguished  from 
it,  has  no  place  in  his  system ;  and  quite  consist- 
ently so.  The  theological  necessitarian  of  course 
shrinks  from  this  conclusion,  but  his  language  has 
not  unfrequently  been  such  as  to  bear  it  out.  Car- 
rying up  with  an  iron  hand  the  phenomenal  law 
of  cause  and  effect  into  the  region  of  spiritual  life, 
he  may  have  seemed  to  gain  a  temporary  triumph 
over  an  adversary ;  but  he  has  done  so  too  often 
at  the  risk  of  total  peril  to  his  faith,  and  to  the 
very  ground  and  condition  of  all  religion. 

The  true  advocate  of  liberty,  on  the  other  hand, 
simply  maintains  that  in  the  last  resource  the  mind 
or  soul  is  unconditioned  "by  any  natural  cause. 
The  self-conscious  reason,  or  egor  is  incompressi- 
ble by  the  law  of  phenomena.  It  only  is,  and 
lives  in  opposition  to  that  law.  The  spring  of  tho 
soul's  activity  is  ever  within  the  soul.  It  displays 
13* 


298  THEISM. 

itself,  no  doubt,  serially,  in  regular  obedience  to 
the  strongest  motive  ;  but  the  strength  of  the  mo- 
tive conies  from  within,  from  the  soul's  own  prefer- 
ence ;  otherwise  it  would  be  truly  no  motive,  but 
would  forever  remain  a  mere  inducement  or  solic- 
itation presenting  itself  to  the  mind.  It  is  always 
the  mind's  own  act  that  changes  a  mere  induce- 
ment into  a  motive,  and  leads  to  action.  Accord- 
ing to  the  well-known  pithy  saying  of  Coleridge, 
"  it  is  not  the  motive  makes  the  man,  but  the  man 
the  motive." 

The  liberty  thus  defined,  it  may  deserve  to  be 
remarked,  is  entirely  different  from  the  old  imagi- 
nation of  a  liberty  of  indifference.  This  latter  rep- 
resented the  mind,  as  it  were,  in  equilibria,  till  it  put 
forth  the  power  of  choice  among  the  motives  bear- 
ing upon  it.  It  placed  the  soul,  as  it  were,  on  one 
side,  and  motives  on  the  other,  and  pretended  to 
give  an  explanation  of  the  mode  of  action  between 
the  two.  The  true  theory  of  liberty  makes  no  such 
pretensions ;  it  knows  nothing  of  the  soul  save  as 
active.  An  abstract  potentiality,  which  of  its  own 
sovereignty  keeps  itself  apart  from  motives,  or 
yields  to  them  at  pleasure,  is  in  no  respect  recog- 
nized by  it.  It  simply  Contends,  that  in  every  case 
of  actual  human  conduct  the  motive  power  is  from 
within  the  soul  itself,  and  not  in  any  respect  physi- 
cally conditioned.  It  simply  says  tha,t  man  is  free 
to  act,  but  it  does  not  pretend  for  a  moment  to  ex- 


FiiEEDOM —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       299 

plain  the  mode  of  his  freedom.  This  it  so  little 
does  that  it  acknowledges  the  fact  of  human  free- 
dom to  be  in  its  very  character  inexplicable. 

This  character  of  mystery — of  irresolvability, 
under  the  great  inductive  law  of  cause  and  effect 
— comprises,  in  truth,  all  that  can  be  argumenta- 
tively  said  against  the  doctrine  of  liberty.  The 
fact  will  not  come  within  the  conditions  of  our 
logical  faculty,  and  must  therefore  be  repelled. 
But  this  is  a  thoroughly  vicious  mode  of  argument: 
for,  by  the  very  supposition,  the  fact  transcends 
these  conditions ;  and  to  reject  it  on  this  account  is 
simply  to  beg  the  whole  question.  If  this  fact  be 
at  all,  it  is  primary  and  constitutive,  and  therefore 
not  to  be  reasoned  to,  but  from.  It  stands  at  the 
head  of  our  rational  nature  as  its  source.  And  as 
such  a  source — as  the  inherent  activity  whence  all 
our  mental  modes  are  born — the  fountain  whence 
they  flow — the  me,  of  which  they  are  the  varied 
manifestations— it  defies  the  application  of  that  in- 
ductive law  under  which  they  arise,  and  for  the 
very  reason  that  it  is  what  it  is — not  any  one  of 
these  modes,  but  the  root  of  them  all — not  any  of 
the  manifold  sides  of  consciousness,  but  the  unity 
in  which  all  its  sides  center.  In  this  view  it  is  not 
only  not  wonderful  that  we  can  not  understand  free- 
dom, but  the  fact  is  such  in  its  very  idea  that  it  is 
impossible  we  ever  can  understand  it,  transcending 
as  it  necessarily  does  that  logical  power  of  which  it 


300  THEISM. 

is  the  condition.  Thus  apprehended  in  its  primi- 
tive distinction,  it  leaves  us  no  alternative  but  to 
abide  by  it  in  its  necessary  incomprehensibility.  It 
is  there — we  are  bound  to  recognize  it.  But  we 
have  no  claim  to  comprehend  it,  for  (as  logicians) 
we  do  not  contain  it — it  contains  us.  Whatever 
we  are  in  our  mental  and  practical  character  is  just 
the  expression  of  this  mysterious  personality,  to 
which  all  our  activity  leads  back,  and  from  which 
it  all  flows. 

It  is  as  the  irresistible  testimony  of  consciousness 
that  this  fact  forces  acceptance.  It  attests  its  reality 
within  us,  and  we  can  not  get  quit  of  it  under 
whatever  ingenuity  of  explanation.  On  this  ground 
the  advocate  of  liberty  has  an  advantage  which  is 
wholly  indisputable ;  for  that  we  feel  ourselves  to 
be  free,  none  can  truly  deny.  This  feeling — our 
deepest  and  most  ineradicable  consciousness — the 
doctrine  of  necessity  can  not  accept  as  a  fact ;  or,  if 
it  does,  we  have  no  dispute  with  it ;  only  we  do 
not  see  how  it  can  consistently  maintain  itself  if  it 
does.  For  the  feeling  can  not  represent  a  reality, 
and  yet  man's  spiritual,  no  less  than  his  material 
being,  be  held  as  naturally  determined.  In  such  a 
case  the  feeling  can  only  be  an  illusion,  and  man  a 
bondman,  wholly  a  creature  of  nature,  howsoever 
he  may  seem  every  moment  to  create  a  circle  of 
free  activity  around  him.  But  if  consciousness  be 
thus  held  false,  man  is  cast  adrift  on  an  ocean  of 


FREEDOM  —  DIVINE    PEESONALITY.       301 

utter  uncertainty.  Truth  becomes  for  him  a  mere 
dream,  if  the  voice  within  him  be  held  incompe- 
tent to  give  it  valid  utterance. 

The  deliverance  of  consciousness  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, held  by  the  advocate  of  freedom  to  be  at 
once  decisive  and  ultimate  on  the  point.  It  is  not, 
in  his  view,  any  mere  dim  experience  whith  disap- 
pears under  analysis,  but  a  truth  which  makes  itself 
good  under  whatever  logical  assaults.  The  altern- 
ative is  simply  one  of  fact.  The  human  conscious- 
ness either  tells  the  truth  absolutely,  unheeding 
how  it  may  clash  with  some  other  truth  in  the  dim- 
lighted  chamber  of  the  logical  understanding,  or  it 
must  be  admitted  to  be  false.  No  saving  clauses 
of  ingenious  explanation  will  avail.  Man  is  either 
free  really,  or  he  is  not  free.  There  is  in  him  a 
center  of  action  wholly  peculiar,  a  naturally  unde- 
termined source  of  activity,  otherwise  his  deepest 
experience  belies  itself,  and  his  moral  nature  is  a 
devout  imagination.  There  is  nothing  but  the  re- 
cognition of  such  a  free  agency  in  man,  however 
mysterious  and  unaccountable,  that  can  preserve 
to  him  faith  in  himself,  or  the  perilous  dignity  of 
responsibility  among  the  creatures  of  earth.  If  he 
has  not  in  a  true  sense  such  a  power  of  action 
springing  from  within  his  own  spiritual  being,  his 
consciousness  deceives  him,  and  he  is  and  can  be 
nothing  else  than  a  mere  irresponsible  link  in  the 
chain  of  phenomena. 


302  THEIS'M. 

As  the  only  rational  means  of  escape  from  such 
a  conclusion,  consciousness  must  be  held  in  its  at- 
testation of  freedom  to  express  a  reality,  to  declare 
a  truth,  admitting  of  no  exception,  however  in- 
geniously represented.  Man  must  be  recognized 
as  free  in  a  sense  quite  peculiar,  separating  him 
from  all*  other  earthly  creatures.  While  owning, 
in  the  actual  course  of  his  thought  and  volition,  the 
great  phenomenal  law  of  cause  and  effect,  there 
must  be  admitted  to  be  in  him  at  the  same  time  a 
mysterious  center  of  personality — nothing  else  than 
the  soul,  which  withdraws  itself  from  this  law,  and 
asserts  itself  against  it. 

What,  then,  is  the  bearing  of  this  fact  on  our 
subject?  As  we  previously  said,  it  is  the  most 
vital  for  our  purpose  in  our  whole  range  of  in- 
quiry; but  just  corresponding  with  its  peculiar 
depth  and  importance  is  the  difficulty  of  fully  seiz- 
ing and  expressing  its  significance.  We  have 
already  seen  in  what  respect  it  lies  at  the  root  of 
our  inductive  evidence  as  the  source  of  our  idea  of 
cause.  The  strange  relation  of  affinity  and  yet 
conflict  which  thus  emerges  between  the  principles 
of  personality  and  causality  were  an  interesting 
subject  of  consideration,  but  can  not  occupy  us 
here.*  We  have  at  present  simply  to  do  with  the 
direct  import  of  the  fact  of  personality  in  the  en- 
largement of  our  theistic  evidence.  In  tracing 

*  See  note  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 


FREEDOM  —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       303 

back  our  mental  life,  we  have  this  fact  as  the  last 
word  for  reason.  The  Me  asserts  itself  as  an  in- 
scrutable reality,  beyond  which  we  can  not  go  in 
the  way  of  natural  explanation.  It  refuses  obsti- 
nately to  be  related  to  any  higher  fact,  as  a  natural 
sequence.  But  have  we  not  thus  reached  a  start- 
ling conclusion  ?  If  the  human  ego  be  thus  as  it 
so  clearly  pronounces  itself  to  be,  a  cause  in  the 
highest  and  indeed  only  true  sense — viz.  a  nat- 
urally undetermined  source  of  activity — is  it  not 
thereby,  in  its  very  character,  its  own  author? 
If  undetermined,  is  it  not  necessarily  independ- 
ent? 

So  far  is  this  from  being  the  case,  that  we  'here 
approach  the  very  peculiarity  of  the  theistic  mean- 
ing which  this  prime  fact  yields  us ;  for,  in  the 
very  act  of  expressing  itself,  it  is  found  to  be  its 
essential  characteristic,  at  the  same  time,  to  express 
Another.  It  only  realizes  itself  in  Another.  The 
more  we  sink  back  into  the  depths  of  conscious- 
ness, and  the  more  vivid  force  and  reality  with 
which  we  seize  our  personal  being,  as  something 
unconditioned  by  nature,  and  rising  above  it,  the 
more  directly  and  immediately  do  we  at  the  same 
time  apprehend  ourselves  as  relative  and  dependent. 
The  more  we  become  self-conscious,  the  more  do 
we  feel,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  ground  of  our 
existence  is  not  in  ourselves,  but  in  Another  and  a 
Higher.  Our  personality,  in  asserting  itself  to  be 


304  THEISM. 

distinct  from  nature,  yet  with  equal  force  asserts 
itself  to  be  derived,  or,  in  other  language,  to  take 
its  rise  in  a  Principle  above  nature.  The  human 
self,  in  a  word,  irresistibly  suggests  a  divine  Self ; 
the  limited  cause,  an  absolutely  original  and  un- 
limited Cause. 

It  is  true  that  we  thus,  in  the  last  analysis,  bring 
into  special  prominence  the  logical  incomprehen- 
sibility which  meets  us  in  the  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness. We  realize  ourselves  as  free,  and  yet 
dependent.  Nay,  in  our  very  freedom  we  at  the 
same  time  find  our  dependency.  The  more  we  sink 
into  ourselves,  the  more  do  we  feel  ourselves  to 
rest  on  a  Higher.  Just  as  we  accept  the  testimony 
of  consciousness  in  giving  us  liberty — the  soul's 
efficiency  for  its  own  acts— so  do  we  accept  its  tes- 
timony in  giving  a  relation  to  this  efficiency  in  the 
All-efficient.  Let  it  be  that  we  can  not  construe  to 
ourselves  this  relation  intelligibly — can  not  com- 
pass it  in  thought — this  is  no  valid  ground  for  re- 
jecting either  term  of  it.  We  can  only  do  so  by 
trampling  upon  consciousness,  and  exposing  our- 
selves to  the  whole  peril  of  skepticism.  The  facts 
must  be  accepted  as  given,  however  impossible  it 
may  be  for  us  to  join  them  logically  together  ;  and 
for  this  obvious  reason,  which,  if  it  does  not  give 
satisfaction,  ought  yet  to  give  resignation,  that  our 
mere  capacity  of  thought  can  not,  in  the  nature  of 
the  case,  be  the  measure  of  truth  here  nor  any 


w 


FREEDOM  —  DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       305 


here.  Great  master  in  its  own  sphere  (in  the 
evolution  and  determination  of  all  the  forms  of 
science,)  it  must  yet  be  content  to  be  the  minister 
of  reality. 

It  is  requisite  to  observe  the  full"  import  of  our 
conclusion.  Our  own  personality  not  only  gives 
another  personality,  but  another  which  is  at  the 
same  time  absolute.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  special  ra- 
tional intuition  of  the  absolute  in  the  relative — the 
infinite  in  the  finite — which  carries  us  beyond  the 
Self  within,  to  a  Self  without  and  above  us.  How 
vital,  in  a  theistic  sense,  this  intuition  is,  must 
therefore  be  obvious.  But  it  is  not  our  aim  at 
present  to  insist  upon  the  reality  of  the  infinite 
which  thus  dawns  upon  us.  This  reality  will  after- 
ward engage  us  separately.  We  would  now  rather 
simply  fix  attention  on  the  fact  of  Divine  person- 
ality, so  vividly  brought  before  us. 

Of  all  the  facts  of  Theism  this  may  be  said  to  be 
the  most  fundamental,  as  it  is  that  in  which  all  the 
others  inhere,  and  find  their  life.  It  is  a  fact  which 
already  we  had  virtually  found  in  the  theistic  con- 
clusion which  we  established  in  our  first  section. 
For  an  intelligent  First  Cause,  according  to  our 
mode  of  reaching  and  authenticating  the  idea,  could 
only  be  a  living  Personality.  This  great  truth  of 
the  Divine  Personality,  however,  comes  before  us 
here  with  intuitive  brightness.  It  reveals  itself  as 
the  clear  reflection — the  abglanz,  as  the  Germans 


306  THEISM. 

expressively  term  it — of  our  own  personality.*  The 
Thou  of  our  prayers  rises  in  solemn  reality  against 
our  own  most  hidden  self- consciousness.  Our  deep- 
est life  centers  in  Another,  in  whom  alone  "  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being."  In  comparison 
with  every  other  apprehension  of  God  this  appre- 
hension of  Him  is  immediate  and  decisive.  We 
rejoice  to  trace  Him  also  in  nature ;  we  gladden 
to  greet  His  presence  in  every  bursting  flower,  in 
every  curious  organism,  in  the  heavens  and  in  the 
earth.  But  while  we  only  search  in  nature,  we 
search  as  with  vailed  gaze,  "if  haply  we  might  feel 
after  Him,  and  find  Him."  It  is  only  in  the  depths 
of  self-reflection — within  its  most  secret  cham- 
bers— that  we  become  conscious  of  His  immediate 
presence,  and  know  that  He  is  "  not  far  from  every 
one  of  us." 


NOTE. 

There  is  a  relation  of  the  whole  subject  arising  out  of  this 
chapter,  which  can  scarcely  fail  to  suggest  itself  to  the  specula- 
tive reader,  and  which  may  claim  from  us  a  passing  notice,  in 

*  Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  elaborate  treatise  of  Dr. 
Julius  Miller  on  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  may  recognize  a 
similarity  between  the  process  of  theistic  reasoning  in  this  chap- 
ter, and  that  contained  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  first  book 
of  that  treatise,  p.  79,  vol.  i.  et  seq.  The  writer  gratefully  ac- 
knowledges his  obligations  to  Dr.  Miller  here  and  elsewhere. 
It  will  be  seen,  at  the  same  time,  that  his  own  course  of  argument, 
in  the  present  case,  is  sufficiently  distinctive. 


FREEDOM — DIVINE    PERSONALITY.       307 

case  it  should  be  supposed  that  we  have  overlooked  it.  The 
basis  of  our  preliminary  reasoning,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
the  rational  necessity  that  compelled  us  to  find  a  cause  at  the 
head  of  nature.  "We  can  not  conceive  a  mere  endless  series  of 
relative  phenomena.  "We  must  have  a  cause  or  origin  of  the 
series ;  or,  in  other  words,  according  to  our  whole  view,  an 
efficient  Agent  or  Mind.  Yet  it  is  certainly  true,  as  we  have 
freely  admitted  in  this  chapter,  that  we  can  not  compass  in 
thought,  or  conceive,  in  this  lower  sense,  such  an  efficient 'agent. 
The  argument  seems  to  run  up  into  a  contradiction  or  antagon- 
ism of  inconceivabilities.  And  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the 
sphere  of  mere  thought  or  logical  comprehension,  there  seems 
to  be  no  escape  from  the  contradiction.  "We  are  bandied  about 
from  one  horn  of  the  logical  dilemma  to  another,  in  a  hopeless 
state  of  confusion  and  perplexity.  Let  the  speculative  reader, 
who  desire's  to  see  the  contradiction  which  thus  arises  fully  ex- 
posed, and  in  its  bearing,  too,  on  the  subject  of  this  chapter, 
consult  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Discussions,  Appendix,  p.  591  et  seq. 

Sir  "William's  mode  of  escape  from  the  difficulty  we  can  not 
accept.  The  principle  of  causality  he  considers  to  be  the  mere 
issue  of  our  intellectual  impotency  to  conceive  any  thing  save 
as  related  in  time.  The  principle  of  personality  or  liberty  is 
with  him  equally  the  fruit  of  a  similar  impotency  to  conceive 
an  infinite  series  of  relations.  Both,  therefore,  being  mere  im- 
poteneies  of  human  thought,  their  mutual  contradiction  does 
not  necessarily  imply  the  falsehood  of  either. 

The  seeming  contradiction  vanishes  with  us  in  a  different, 
and,  as  we  think,  more  satisfactory  way.  Causality  and  per- 
sonality have,  in  our  view,  one  and  the  same  root,  which,  from 
the  first,  is  found  in  a  sphere  beyond  logic,  So  far  from  being 
the  mere  issue  of  opposing  negations,  as  Sir  William  Hamilton 
makes  them,  both  principles  take  their  rise  in  the  most  living 
reality  of  existence,  the  ego.  That  every  effect  must  have  a 
cause,  means  simply  that  every  thing  implies  as  its  source  a 
living  agent  or  mind ;  and  this  living  agent  or  mind  is  simply 
a  personality.  We  can  not  conceive  things  save  as  the  produc- 
tion of  such  a  mind.  Our  reason  demands  such  a  mind.  The 
inconceivability  here  is  a  complete  rational  inconceivability. 
There  is  no  escape  from  it.  And  if  it  be  also  true  that  we  can- 
not logically  conceive,  comprehend,  or  contain  in  thought  such 
a  Taind,  yet  there  is  every  difference  between  this  and  the  in- 


308  THEISM. 

eonceivability  in  the  former  case.  This  is  merely  negative, 
springing  out  of  the  necessary  limitations  of  human  thought. 
The  former  is  not  only  negative,  but  issues  out  of  a  positive  de- 
mand of  reason  on  the  other  side.  It  would  be  more  correct, 
in  fact,  to  restrict  the  use  of  the  term  inconceivable  to  the 
former  case:  for  although  we  can  not  think,  or  construe  to  our- 
selves logically,  an  efficient  cause  or  mind,  such  a  cause  is  so 
far  from  being  inconceivable  to  reason  that  reason  expressly 
demands  and  affirms  it.  The  reality  of  such  a  higher  power  of 
reason,  which  inseparably  blends  with  faith,  and  is  the  organ 
of  the  unconditioned  and  insensible  (see  subsequent  chapter),  is 
implied  in  our  whole  course  of  reasoning.  The  truths  revealed 
in  this  higher  reason  are  not,  properly  speaking,  inconceivable : 
they  are  only  incomprehensible.  The  intellect  can  not  compass 
them ;  and  this  is  of  their  very  nature,  because  they  are  what 
they  are — primary  and  not  derivative. 


§  III.— CHAPTER   III. 

CONSCIENCE — DIVINE    RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

As  freedom  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  our 
moral  being,  so  conscience  is  its  guide  and  regu- 
lator. The  soul,  while  self-acting,  is  at  the  same 
time  spiritually  controlled.  It  is  then,  indeed,  most 
itself,  most  truly  free,  when  most  fully  informed 
and  controlled  by  conscience. 

As  in  the  case  of  every  other  element  of  man's 
spiritual  being,  the  special  character  of  conscience 
has  been  greatly  disputed.  Philosophy  has  found 
here  even  a  favorite  field  of  struggle.  Among  all 
our  most  earnest  thinkers,  however,  there  may  be 
said  to  be  at  length  something  like  unanimity  in 
regarding  conscience  as  a  primitive  and  distinct 
fact  or  faculty.  The  attempts  which  have  been 
made  to  resolve  it  into  some  simpler  element  of  our 
mental  constitution  have  merely  served  to  prove 
the  intimate  alliance  between  conscience  and  our 
other  mental  powers,  and  their  necessary  influence 
upon  its  e  lucation  and  development.  But  in  no 


310  THEISM. 

case  have  they  sufficed  fully  to  explain  its  origin. 
The  most  skillful  analysis  of  the  association  of 
ideas,  or  of  our  common  intellectual  judgments, 
into  both  of  which  it  has  been  sought  to  be  ex- 
plained, still  leaves  a  residuary  element  unaccount- 
ed for,  which,  whatever  name  we  give  to  it,  is 
nothing  else  than  the  germ  which  expands  into  the 
full  moral  reality  which  we  mean  by  conscience. 

In  its  most  general  application  it  may  be  defined 
as  that  element  of  our  being  by  which  we  become 
conscious  of  duty.  It  introduces  man  into  a  set  of 
relations  bearing  to  him  the  peculiar  character  of 
obligation,  which,  however  little  he  may  be  able  to 
analyze  it,  is  felt  by  him  in  the  strongest  manner. 
Viewed  as  a  mental  power,  its  chief  peculiarity 
accordingly  consists  in  the  position  which  it  thus 
assumes  among  our  other  powers.  It  not  only  per- 
ceives, but  commands;  not  only  points  the  way, 
but  orders  to  walk  in  it. 

Since  the  profound  and  luminous  expositions  of 
Butler,  in  his  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  the  atten- 
tion of  moralists  has  been  prominently  fixed  on  this 
authoritative  aspect  of  conscience.  Its  special  func- 
tion has  been  recognized  as  that  of  a  guide  and  gov- 
ernor. It  is  impossible,  as  Butler  has  pointed  out, 
to  dissociate  from  it  the  notion  of  direction  and 
superintendency.  "This  is  a  constituent  part  of 
thfc  idea — that  is,  of  the  faculty  itself ;  and  to  pre- 
side and  govern,  from  the  very  economy  and  con- 


CONSCIENCE — DIVINE  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  311 

stitution  of  man,  belongs  to  it."  "  This  faculty," 
he  adds,  ' '  was  placed  within  us  to  be  our  proper 
governor  ;  to  direct  and  regulate  all  under  princi- 
ples, passions,  and  motives  of  action.  This  is  its 
right  and  office.  Thus  sacred  is  its  authority. 
And  how  often  soever  men  violate  and  rebelliously 
refuse  to  submit  to  it,  for  supposed  interest  which 
they  can  not  otherwise  obtain,  or  for  the  sake  of 
passion  which  they  can  not  otherwise  gratify,  this 
makes  no  alteration  as  to  the  natural  right  and 
office  of  conscience."  Even  when  its  judgments  are 
set  aside,  or  trampled  under  foot,  by  the  perverse 
force  of  the  will,  conscience,  as  Butler  truly  indi- 
cates, does  not,  rightly  speaking,  lose  its  authority. 
It  holds  the  transgressor  in  its  grasp,  and  can 
bring  him  trembling  before  its  judgment-seat,  even 
when  he  would  seem  to  have  broken  loose  from  all 
its  restraints,  and  completely  overborne  its  power. 
It  asserts  its  sovereignty  with  a  fearful  reality,  even 
although  its  scepter  has  been  broken,  and  its  throne 
desecrated.  Aloft  itself,  even  among  the  ruins  of 
its  kingdom,  it  arraigns  the  stoutesx  rebel,  and 
often  holds  in  cowering  bondage  the  most  reckless 
criminal.  "  Had  it  strength,  as  it  has  right ;  had 
it  power,  as  it  has  manifest  authority,  it  would,"  in 
Butler's  expressive  language,  "  absolutely  govern 
the  world." 

It  is  especially  this  supreme  and  legislative  aspect 
of  conscience  which  gives   it  significance  for  the 


812  THEISM. 

natural  theologian,  As  a  simple  fact  of  creation  it 
yields,  undoubtedly,  like  every  other  fact,  its  ap- 
propriate testimony  to  the  Creator ;  but  here,  in 
its  authoritative  import,  is  rightly  recognized  a  pe- 
culiar and  important  element  of  theistic  evidence. 
For  the  question  immediately  arises,  Whence  this 
authority  of  conscience  ?  Does  not  the  very  fact 
of  a  law  within  us  directly  testify  to  a  Lawgiver 
without  and  above  us  ?  Does  not  the  one  fact,  in 
its  very  nature,  involve  the  other  ?  The  argument 
seems  irresistible.  The  sense  of  government  in 
every  heart  can  only  proceed  from  a  living  gov- 
ernor, who  placed  it  there.  The  moral  power 
within  us,  therefore,  gives,  as  its  immediate  infer- 
ence, a  Divine  Power  above  us. 

Every  one  will  recognize  in  our  statement  a  form 
of  the  theistic  argument  which,  expounded  by  the 
zealous  eloquence  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  has  passed  into 
familiar  currency  in  our  natural  theology.  "  The 
felt  presence  of  a  judge  within  the  breast,"  he  says, 
"  powerfully  and  immediately  suggests  the  notion 
of  a  Supreme  Judge  and  Sovereign  who  placed  it 
there.  Upon  this  question  the  mind  does  not  stop 
short  at  mere  abstraction,  but,  passing  at  once  from 
the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  the  law  of  the 
heart  it  makes  the  rapid  inference  of  a  Lawgiver. 
The  sense  of  a  governing  principle  within,  begets 
in  all  men  the  sentiment  of  a  living  Governor  with- 
out and  above  them,  and  it  does  so  with  all  the 


CONSCIENCE — DIVINE   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  313 

speed  of  an  instantaneous  feeling ;  yet  it  is  not  an 
impression — it  is  an  inference  notwithstanding,  and 
as  much  so  as  any  inference  from  that  which  is  seen 
to  that  which  is  unseen.  There  is,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, cognizance  taken  of  a  fact,  if  not  by  the  out- 
ward eye,  yet,  as  good,  by  the  eye  of  consciousness, 
which  has  been  termed  the  faculty  of  internal  ob- 
servation. And  th'e  consequent  belief  of  a  God, 
instead  of  being  an  instinctive  sense  of  the  Divinity, 
is  the  fruit  of  an  inference  grounded  on  that  fact. 
There  is  instant  transition  made,  from  the  sense  of 
a  monitor  within  to  the  faith  of  a  living  Sovereign 
above;  and  this  argument,  described  by  all,  but 
with  such  speed  as  almost  to  warrant  the  expression 
of  its  being  felt  by  all,  may  be  regarded,  notwith- 
standing the  force  and  fertility  of  other  considera- 
tions, as  the  great  prop  of  natural  religion  among 
men."* 

It  is  a  question  of  little  moment  for  the  substan- 
tial conclusion  involved — which  is  good  in  either 
case— whether  the  act  by  which  it  is  reached  be 
considered,  with  Dr.  Chalmers,  really  inductive,  or 
rather  intuitive.  This  obviously  depends  upon  the 
further  question  as  to  what  are  regarded  to  be  the 
special  constituents  of  conscience.  If  we  recognize 
it,  with  Butler,  according  to  the  view  already  set 
forth,  to  be  itself  a  delegated  power,  and  not  mere- 
ly the  perception  or  revelation  of  a  power,  we  ob- 

*  Natural  Theology,  vol.  i.  pp.  331,  332. 
14 


314  THEISM. 

viouslj  leave  room  for  an  inductive  step  or  infer- 
ence. We  have  in  this  view,  as  the  immediate  fact 
of  consciousness,  a  sense  of  authority  which,  as  we 
can  not  conceive  it  to  be  self-constituted,  we  neces- 
sarily refer  to  a  supreme  or  divine  Source.  But  if, 
according  to  the  more  simple  view,  and  what  would 
seem  to  be  the  direct  import  of  the  name  conscience, 
we  consider  it  as  not  in  any  way  containing  in  it- 
self the  power  with  which  it  rules  us,  but  as  direct- 
ly revealing  to  us  that  power  in  another,  then  we 
leave  no  room  for  induction.  "We  have,  in  the  very 
fact  of  conscience,  the  intuition  of  the  Divine  will, 
just  as  we  have  in  the  fact  of  self-existence  the  in- 
tuition of  the  Divine  existence.  As  we  can  not  re- 
alize our  being  without  at  the  same  time  realizing 
another  and  a  higher  Being,  so  we  can  not  become 
conscious  of  duty,  without  at -the  same  time  realiz- 
ing another  and  a  higher  Will.  The  moral  law  is 
to  us  nothing  more  than  the  revelation  of  this  high- 
er or  divine  Will  in  the  soul.  We  do  not,  there- 
fore, need  to  rise  from  it  to  God,  for  it  is  already 
the  voice  of  God  within  us.  We  are  carried  out  of 
ourselves,  so  to  speak,  in  the  simple  reality  of  con- 
science. The  authority  which,  in  conscience, 
speaks  to  us  is  not  merely  something  from  which 
we  may  infer  a  divine  Power,  but  is  already  the  di- 
rect expression  of  that  power. 

This,  upon  reflection,  we  feel  convinced,  is  the 
more  just  and  penetrating  view  of  the  subject.   Pre- 


CONSCIENCE — DIVINE   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  315 

serving  all  the  truth  of  Butler's  view,  in  even  a 
higher  form  than  he  presented  it,  it  gives,  in  a  psy- 
chological respect,  a  more  discriminating  and  con- 
sistent interpretation  of  conscience,  than  when  it  is 
regarded  as  in  itself  both  a  perceptive  and  impera- 
tive faculty.  Viewed  simply  as  the  organ  of  a 
higher  power,  its  psychological  dignity  is  at  once 
vindicated,  and  its  possible  abuse  readily  under* 
stood.  For  let  the  organ  be  untrained  or  neglected, 
and  its  intuition  will  be  dim  and  obscure,  or  even 
absolutely  perverted.  But  let  it  be  appropriately 
disciplined,  and  its  intuition  will  rise  into  clearness 
and  truth.  We  do  not  see,  in  any  case,  how  con- 
science can*  ever  be  adequately  explained,  without 
bringing  into  prominence  the  theological  meaning 
which  it  so  essentially  expresses.  Apart  from  God 
it  would  be  an  inexplicable  riddle  :  held  as  reveal- 
ing God,  it  becomes  beautifully  intelligible.  It  is 
the  light  within  whereby  we  perceive  at  once  the 
Hand  that  guides  us,  and,  although  more  dimly, 
the  destination  that  awaits  us. 

We  have  not  yet,  however,  exhausted  the  theis- 
tic  significance  of  conscience.  It  is  not  merely  to 
the  fact  of  a  divine  Power  that  it  testifies,  but  emi- 
nently to  the  character  of  that  power.  The  moral 
law,  which  it  reveals,  is  not  simply  the  expression 
of  a  supreme  Will,  but  of  a  Will  which  is  essential- 
ly good  and  righteous.  It  is  this,  in  truth,  which 
gives  all  its  force  to  conscience.  It  is  by  the  good 


316  THEISM. 

alone  that  it  governs.  It  is  the  law  of  goodness 
which  asserts  itself  in  the  human  heart,  under  what- 
ever violation,  and  holds  itself  a  sovereign,  even 
when  its  kingdom  has  been  invaded  and  laid  waste. 
To  this  idea  of  a  God  above  man,  claiming  his  obe- 
dience, we  alone  owe  the  very  conception  of  duty. 
It  is  this  which  gives  all  its  peculiar  sacredness  and 
beauty  to  human  life.  Apart  from  it  man  would 
merely  be  as  the  brutes  around  him,  with  no  noble- 
ness of  piety  in  his  heart,  and  no  long-suffering  love 
mingling  its  purifying  fires  in  his  lot.  In  conscience, 
therefore,  we  must  recognize  a  peculiar  testimony 
to  the  divine  goodness.  As  the  organ  of  duty,  it 
is  in  fact  specifically  the  revelation  of  the  Supreme 
Good.  It  brings  man  not  only  into  converse  with 
Goodness,  but  relates  him  to  it,  as  the  power  which 
binds  him  in  his  daily  life,  and  would  guide  him  to 
daily  happiness. 

But  the  divine  Goodness,  to  which  conscience 
testifies,  is  at  the  same  time  divine  Eighteousness. 
This  is  a  further  very  significant  and  wholly  pecu- 
liar element  of  theistic  evidence  disclosed  in  con- 
science. The  Supreme  Good  interprets  itself  here 
as  the  Supreme  Right.  This  idea  o^  Right  is  one 
which,  hitherto,  we  could  not  possibly  have  encoun- 
tered ;  for  it  only  finds  an  application  in  the  region 
of  free  moral  life,  where  it  emerges  correlatively 
with  duty.  It  is  the  idea  in  which  alone  duty  finds 
its  complement,  and  so  becomes  the  sacred  bond 


CONSCIENCE — DIVINE   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  317 

which  holds  our  moral  being  in  harmony.  The 
element  or  attribute  of  righteousness  is  one,  there- 
fore, which  a  comprehensive  natural  theology  must 
ever  recognize  in  the  Divine  Being.  The  broad 
and  earnest  mind  of  Dr.  Chalmers  did,  perhaps, 
especial  service  in  making  this  clear  and  prominent. 
And  it  has  since  become  more  and  more  a  matter 
of  conviction  that  Theism  is  not  only  bound  to  take 
up  this  element,  but  that  it  furnishes,  to  some  ex- 
tent, the  key  to  the  profound  mysteries  which  lie 
around  the  special  attribute  of  divine  goodness. 
For  in  order  to  perceive  a  benevolent  meaning  in 
much  that  would  otherwise  seem  opposed  to  be- 
nevolence, we  have  only  to  see  that  goodness  com- 
pletes itself  in  righteousness,  and  can  never  validly 
come  short  of  it.  The  conception  of  goodness  be- 
comes thus  not  only  exalted,  but  discriminated. 
Whereas,  in  the  lower  regions  of  sentient  and  in- 
tellectual life,  the  former  attribute  is  apparent 
merely  as  a  disposition  to  bestow  happiness — here, 
in  the  light  of  the  farther  conception  into  which  it 
rises,  it  appears  before  us  as  something  which  may, 
in  the  highest  sense,  assert  itself,  not  certainly  irre- 
spective of  happiness,  yet  apart  from  its  immediate 
bestowal — yea,  even  in  the  bestowal  of  partial  and 
temporary  unhappiness.  For,  as  the  good  is  at  the 
same  time  ever  the  right,  as  love  only  sustains  itself 
in  holiness,  so  it  becomes  conceivable  that,  where 
the  right  has  been  invaded,  and  the  holy  desecrated, 


318  THEISM. 

goodness  may  express  itself  most  distinctively  in 
suffering  or  punishment.  This  bearing  of  the  sub- 
ject we  now  merely  indicate,  as  it  will  afterward 
come  before  us  for  special  consideration. 

In  the  mean  time  we  fix  attention  upon  the  fact 
of  Kighteousuess,  as  it  has  come  before  us  at  this 
upward  point  in  the  course  of  our  theistic  evi- 
dence. It  is  among  the  last  facts  which  meet  us 
in  the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  God,  which  is  the 
appropriate  task  of  Natural  Theology;  but  in 
another  sense  it  is  undoubtedly  among  the  reasoned 
primary  springs  of  Theism.  For  there  is  no  deeper 
or  more  universal  source  of  the  divine  conscious- 
ness in  every  heart.  It  is,  above  all,  as  a  righteous 
power  that  God  is  spontaneously  known  in  the 
common  mind.  It  is  the  ineradicable  testimony 
of  conscience  which,  above  all,  preserves  the  sense 
of  Divinity  in  the  world,  amid  the  corruptions  of 
passion  or  the  delusions  of  intellectual  self-conceit. 
It  asserts  a  Divine  Presence  with  a  cogency  which 
no  sophistry  can  parry,  and  no  argument  gainsay. 
And  while  man  retains  within  him  this  impressive 
monitor,  the  belief  in  God  can  never  cease,  even 
although  the  manifold  adaptations  of  matter  and 
of  mind  should  fail  to  arrest  his  wonder,  and  en- 
gage his  s?tudy. 


§  III.— CHAPTER  IY. 

KEASON — INFINITY. 
(A    PRIORI    ARGUMENT.) 

MIND  begins  in  faith,  in  holding  for  true  the  ob- 
jective, presented  to  it  in  sensible  perception. 
Thus  intuitive  in  its  lowest  energy,  it  is  equally  so 
in  its  highest.  If,  looking  outward,  it  has  no  fur- 
ther explanation  to  render  of  the  reality  of  the 
visible  world  than  that  it  is  present  in  apprehension, 
and  therefore  must  be  conceived  as  existent ;  so, 
looking  upward  from  the  sphere  of  finite  reality, 
it  perceives  a  higher  world  of  truth,  which  equally 
makes  itself  good  in  apprehension. 

Such  a  higher  power  of  intuition,  by  which  we 
apprehend  realities  beyond  the  region  of  the  sensi- 
ble, is  one  which  is  admitted  by  every  school  of 
philosophy,  save  that  which,  from  the  extremely 
unphilosophical  assumption  lying  at  its  basis,  is 
bound  to  ignore  every  thing  beyond  the  sensible.* 
At  the  same  time,  there  have  been  endless  disputes 

*  Even  empiricism  may  be  said  to  give  us,  under  the  form  of 
generalizations,  a  mimicry  of  the  truths  which  it  yet  denies. 


320  T  H  E  I  S  M  . 

as  to  the  special  name  and  character  of  this  trans- 
cendent institution.  For  our  purpose  it  matters 
not  at  all  how  it  may  be  specially  designated,  or 
even  understood,  so  that  its  reality  is  confessed; 
whether,  for  example,  it  be  identified  more  with 
the  intellectual  or  moral  side  of  our  being.  Ac- 
cording to  the  only  genuine  conception  of  the 
human  mind,  this  is  indeed  a  very  irrelevant 
question,  as  there  are  none  of  the  sides  of  mental 
activity  which  can  be  strictly  demarcated  from  the 
others,  all  blending  as  they  do  endlessly  into  one 
another.  Whether,  therefore,  this  loftiest  energy 
of  the  soul — which  relates  it  to  a  sphere  of  uncon- 
ditioned objectivity,  as  the  lower  intuitional  power 
relates  it  to  the  sphere  of  the  conditioned — be  con- 
ceived of  as  intelligence  in  the  highest  sense  (the 
.TVbOs),  or  as  faith,  it  is  for  us  of  no  consequence. 
As  forming  the  highest  expression  of  our  mental 
activity,  it  seems  eminently  to  deserve  the  special 
name  of  reason,  which  has  often  been  applied 
to  it.* 

*  This  employment  of  the  term  reason,  to  denote  the  special 
faculty  of  the  supersensible  or  unconditioned,  is  very  old, 
although  it  may  be  true  according  to  Sir  W~.  Hamilton  (Ed. 
Reid,  note  A,  p.  769),  that  it  has  only  been  generally  used  in 
this  sense  since  the  time  of  Kant.  Its  justification  seems  to  be 
simply  this,  that  the  highest  energy  or  expression  of  the  human 
mind  may  very  well  receive  pre-eminently  the  name  which  is 
characteristic  of  its  general  nature.  Certainly,  if  the  name  is 
to  be  appropriated  to  any  special  power  or  faculty,  it  ought  to 
be  appropriated  to  this  highest  and  most  aspiring  faculty,  which 
brings  us  into  communion  with  the  spiritual  and  the  infinite.  If 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  821 

The  infinite  is  the  peculiar  object  of  this  higher 
intuition.  It  is  the  revelation  of  reason  as  the 
finite  is  the  revelation  of  sense.  There  is  no  re- 
ality apprehended  under  a  diversity  of  forms,  which 
holds  a  more  living  possession  of  the  human  mind. 
The  various  notions  of  substance,  space,  duration, 
which  constitute  the  necessary  truths  logically 
presupposed  in  all  phenomena  of  sense  and  reflec- 
tion, and  which  reappear  in  all  metaphysic  as  its 
essential  data,  and  merely  different  modes  under 
which  the  infinite  makes  itself  known.  The  very 
variety  of  these,  its  expressions,  and  the  obstinacy 
with  which,  under  whatever  denial,  they  cling  to 
the  mind,  only  serve  to  display  the  richness  of  the 
generic  truth  in  which  they  all  inhere,  and  of  which 
they  are  merely  manifestations. 

The  mode  in  which  we  have  approached  this 
subject  seems  to  dissipate  many  of  the  controver- 
sies which  have  incumbered  it.  It  serves  to  show 
the  reality  of  the  infinite  as  an  element  or  constitu- 
ent of  human  knowledge,  without  in  any  degree 
aiming  to  bring  the  infinite  as  an  idea  within  our 
reach.  So  far  as  we  try  to  seize  or  compass  it  in 

such  an  interpretation  of  reason  were  kept  steadily  in  view,  the 
supposed  conflicts  between  it  and  faith,  which  have  been  so  long 
the  bane  and  opprobrium  of  Theology,  would  speedily  disappear. 
For  thus  they  would  be  clearly  seen  to  form  a  unity  of  power, 
in  which  the  whole  soul,  intellectually  and  practically,  goea 
forth  toward  the  truth.  In  our  older  and  best  theology  this  is 
the  view  under  which  reason  is  presented. —  Vide  HOOKER'S 
Eccles.  Polit.^  book  i.  chap.  vii.  et.  seq. 
14* 


322  THEISM. 

thought — or,  in  other  words,  hold  it  before  us  as 
an  idea — it  can,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  only 
present  itself  as  a  negation.  It  evades  us  in  the 
very  attempt  to  contain  or  comprehend  it.  But 
while  the  infinite  is  thus  incomprehensible  as  a 
subject  of  thought,  it  is  directly  apprehensible  as  a 
reality  of  reason.  Negative  as  an  idea,  it  is  posi- 
tive as  a  fact.  While  we  can  not  think  it,  yet  we 
can  not  want  it.  It  reveals  itself  as  an  implicate 
of  all  our  more  special  mental  conceptions,  and  it 
may  therefore  be  said  to  guarantee  itself  in  the 
very  hold  which  it  thus  keeps  of  the  soul,  under 
all  the  baffling  attempts  of  the  understanding  to 
compass  it.  And  this  is  admitted  by  Sir  W. 
Hamilton,  in  language  than  which  we  could  desire 
nothing  more  plain  as  a  confession  of  all  that  we 
really  contend  for.  "  We  are  thus  taught,"  he 
says,  "  the  salutary  lesson  that  the  capacity  of 
thought  is  not  to  be  constituted  into  the  measure 
of  existence,  and  are  warned  from  recognizing  the 
domain  of  our  knowledge  as  necessarily  coexten- 
sive with  the  horizon  of  our  faith.  And  by  a 
wonderful  revelation  we  are  thus,  in  the  very  con- 
sciousness of  our  inability  to  conceive  aught  above 
the  relative  and  finite,  inspired  with  a  belief  in  the 
existence  of  something  unconditioned  beyond  the 
sphere  of  all  comprehensible  reality."* 

In  the  same  point  of  view  we  see  the  fallacy  of 

*  Philosophical  Discussions,  p.  15. 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  323 

the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  infinite.  Admitting  it 
as  a  regulating  idea  of  human  knowledge,  Kant 
yet  denied  to  it  any  objective  validity.  The  idea, 
according  to  him,  might  be  necessary  to  us,  and 
yet  not  represent  a  reality.  And  so  it  might,  were 
the  ideal  or  notional  the  mode  in  which  the  infinite 
is  alone  present  to  us.  But  this  is  so  far  from  be- 
ing the  case,  that  the  idea,  as  present  in  the  under- 
standing, is  only  the  dim  reflection  of  the  fact 
present  in  reason.  The  infinite  comes  to  us  intu- 
itively, and  not  notionally ;  and  in  this  the  very 
mode  of  its  apprehension  affirms  its  reality.  The  soul 
looks  upward,  and  the  light  of  the  infinite  dawns 
upon  it.  It  presents  itself  as  an  objective  presence 
— a  self-revealing  vision — and  is  not  wrought  out 
as  a  mere  ideal  projection  from  our  mental  rest- 
lessness. It  is  felt  to  be  a  reality  containing  and 
conditioning  the  soul,  which,  with  all  its  power,  it 
can  not  think  away ;  and  this  it  could  not  be, 
were  it  a  mere  self-created  form  of  the  soul.  The 
declaration  of  consciousness  here,  no  less  than  in 
sensible  perception,  gives,  as  its  indisputable  con- 
tents, subject  and  object,  in  immediate  and  insep- 
arable relation.  In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other, 
the  mind  "  gazes  upon  its  object  with  an  immedi- 
acy which  suffers  no  error  or  doubt  to  intervene, 
and  gives  in  this  way  a  guarantee  for  its  legitimacy 
which  it  is  impossible  to  resist."  It  is  now,  in  fact, 
admitted  on  all  hands,  that  Kant's  denial  of  objec- 


324  THEISM. 

tivity  to  the  ideas  of  pare  reason,  and  his  virtual 
readmission  of  their  reality  as  postulates  of  the 
practical  reason,  is  the  most  inconsequent  and  fee- 
ble portion  of  his  whole  philosophy — and  on  the 
special  ground,  already  so  often  stated  by  us,  that 
we  can  not  legitimately  disjoin  the  intellectual  and 
the  moral — the  pure  and  the  practical — and  hold 
their  deliverances  asunder.  Certainly  we  can  not 
leave  out  of  that  highest  spiritual  faculty  we  call 
reason,  the  element  of  faith,  without  destroying  its 
essential  character,  and  making  it  merely  a  higher 
form  of  the  logical  understanding.  It  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  reason — regarded  by  us  as  the 
apex  of  the  soul's  activity — its  consummate  en- 
ergy— to  be  at  once  pure  and  practical,  cognitive 
and  moral.  We  have,  in  the  last  case,  no  higher 
name  for  knowledge  every  where  than  belief. 
And  this  belief,  as  Sir  W.  Hamilton  says,  is  mis- 
taken by  Kant  when  recognized  as  "  a  mere  spirit- 
ual craving."  It  is  rather  "an  immediate  mani- 
festation to  intelligence — not  as  a  postulate,  but  as 
a  datum — not  as  an  interest  in  certain  truths,  but 
as  the  fact,  the  principle,  the  warrant  of  their  cog- 
nition and  reality."* 

No  one  has  dwelt  more  fully  upon  the  function 
of  reason,  and  its  use  and  value  in  natural  theol- 
ogy, than  M.  Cousin.  But  while  others  have  erred 
in  undervaluing  it,  he  has  erred  in  unduly  magni- 

*  Ed.  Reid,  Not*  A,  p.  793. 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  325 

fying  it,  or  rather  in  losing  sight  of  the  human 
in  the  Divine  reality.  It  is  not  with  him,  in  any 
distinctive  sense,  a  human  power  through  which 
we  merely  apprehend  God  as  the  one  ultimate  and 
absolute  Substance  and  Cause ;  but  it  is,  even  in 
its  human  appearance,  a  sort  of  divinity — "not, 
indeed,  the  absolute  God,  but  His  manifestation  in 
spirit  and  in  truth — not  the  Being  of  beings;  but 
the  God  of  the  human  race."* 

The  characteristic  error  of  Cousin  seems  to  con- 
sist in  a  too  extreme  recoil  from  the  subjectivity 
of  Kant.  Looking  at  the  great  constitutive  idea 
of  the  infinite,  in  the  various  phases  in  which  it  is 
found  to  underlie  all  our  mental  operations — as, 
for  example,  the  universal  in  space,  the  eternal  in 
time — Kant  concluded  that  these  were  the  mere' 
forms  or  categories  which  the  mind,  the  ego  cogi- 
tative, imposes  upon  itself.  He  thus  denuded  them 
of  objectivity,  and  thereby,  as  we  have  seen,  con- 
tradicted the  testimony  of  consciousness  in  reason, 
which  embraces  not  only  a  subject,  but  an  object 
— which  declares  the  soul  not  only  to  be  convers- 
ant with  such  notions,  as  regulative  forms  of  its 
own  activity,  but  to  be  directly  and  primarily  con- 
versant with  the  reality  in  which  they  all  inhere. 
Looking  at  these  same  notions,  Cousin,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  not  content  to  accept  them  as  intu- 

*  Fragment  Philosophiques,   preface    de  la  premiere   edit 
pp.  36,  37.     Paris:  1849. 


326  THEISM. 

itively  made  known  to  the  human  reason,  but  he 
insists  upon  them  as  realities  apart  from  the  human 
ego,  and,  indeed,  any  ego  whatever.  They  were 
only  the  forms  of  the  human  ego  with  Kant :  the 
ego  has  nothing  to  do  with  them,  says  Cousin  ;  for 
reason,  which  expresses  or  contains  them,  is  im- 
personal.* But  this  is  to  talk  in  a  language  which 
is  to  us  wholly  unintelligible  ;  for  we  can  have  no 
conception  of  reason  which  is  unrelated  to  person- 
ality. Apart  from  the  latter  element  it  is  a  mere 
abstraction,  equally  unmeaning  with  the  material- 
istic abstraction  of  law,  and  equally  calculated  to 
play  the  same  pantheistic  or  atheistic  part  of  exalt- 
ing itself  in  the  place  of  God.  The  contents  of 
reason  are,  no  doubt,  realities  altogether  apart 
from  the  human  ego  ;  but  how  they  can  be  known 
or  manifested  to  us,  save  as  apprehended  by  that 
ego,  seems  a  puzzle  of  peculiar  hopelessness.  The 
fact  appears  to  be,  that  personality,  or  the  ego,  is 
understood  by  M.  Cousin  as  something  subordinate 
and  inferior,  with  the  action  of  which  it  is  degrad- 
ing to  associate  reason  ;  and  here  again  he  is  found 
somewhat  strangely  meeting  the  views  of  the  ma- 
terialistic school  most  opposed  to  him. 

Our  position  is  equally  opposed  to  both  these  ex- 
tremes. The  infinite  is  apprehended  by  us  as  a 
reality  in  the  strongest  manner,  but  then  the  evi- 

*  Fragment  Philosophiques,  preface  de  la  premiere  edit.,  voL 
iv.  p.  21.  See  also  preface  de  la  deuxieme  edit.,  p.  56. 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  327 

dence  of  tins  reality  is  directly  found  in  the  intui- 
tive apprehension  of  the  ego.  It  is  revealed  in  the 
rational  consciousness,  and  in  its  revelation  suffi- 
ciently attests  its  existence.  Our  reason  relates  us 
to  the  infinite,  a^d  lifts  us  into  communion  with  it. 
It  is  thus  to  us  the  ever-sufficient  evidence  of  the 
Divine  reality  ;  but  it  is  itself  only  a  feeble  and 
broken  shadow  of  that  reality.  It  looks  forth  into 
the  invisible,  and  finds  there  its  living  Author; 
yet  it  is  deeply  conscious  of  its  own  weakness, 
while  conscious  of  its  affinity  with  the  Divine 
Presence  which  there  meets  it,  and  from  which  it 
comes. 

This  infinite  Presence  in  space  and  in  time  is  the 
complement  of  man's  spiritual  being  at  all  points. 
It  asserts  its  power  in  the  human  mind  in  manifold 
ways,  that  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  its  truth. 
Apart  from  its  shadow  in  the  intellect, .  science 
could  not  exist :  knowledge  would  be  a  mere  per- 
plexed and  confused  accumulation.  This,  however, 
brings  a  unity  into  all  our  mental  operations. 
Keason  descries  an  infinite  meaning  every  where, 
and  science  is  the  creation  of  such  a  gift.  Apart 
from  this  reality  in  the  heart  life  would  be  vanity. 
The  higher  glory  of  eternity  could  not  encompass 
and  strengthen  it.  It  is  only  the  truth  of  the  In- 
finite that  gives  significance  to  speculation  or  perse- 
verance to  well-doing. 

In  natural  theology  this  predicate  of  the  Infinite 


328  THEISM. 

is  at  once  the  'most  consummate  and  comprehen- 
sive that  rewards  our  inquiry,  without  which  every 
induction  must  come  short  of  the  proof  of  a  Di- 
vine Existence.  It  gives,  as  its  essential  contents, 
not  only  all  those  special  attributes  of  eternity, 
omnipotence,  omniscience,  of  which  it  is  simply  the 
generic  expression ;  but,  moreover,  the  unity  of 
these  attributes,  in  which  the  idea  of  God  alone 
completes  itself.  For  unity  is  plainly  a  logical 
condition  of  infinity  ;  and,  manifold  as  are  the  in- 
dications of  unity  in  nature,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  these  could  give  us  more  than  a  unity  of 
Divine  purpose,  whereas  our  conclusion  requires  a 
unity  of  Divine  Essence.  It  attains  to  its  full 
meaning  only  in  the  admission  of  one  "  all-power- 
ful, wise,  and  good  Being,  by  whom  every  thing 

exists." 

• 

The  special  question  of  the  validity  of  the  a 
priori  argument  for  the  being  of  a  God  here  comes 
before  us  directly  ;  and  although  our  relation  to  it 
can  scarcely  fail  to  have  made  itself  intelligible  to 
the  philosophical  reader,  it  may  yet  deserve  from 
us  a  special  consideration. 

The  pretension  of  the  a  priori  argument  is  the 
logical  evolution  or  demonstration  of  the  truth  of 
the  Divine  existence  from  some  element  or  datum 
admitted  to  be  indisputable.  In  order  strictly  to 
maintain  its  character,  this  element  ought  to  be  one 


SEASON —  INFINITY.  829 

ineradicably  given  in  our  modes  of  thought — an 
intellectual  point  of  which  we  can  not  get  rid,  but 
which  we  continue  to  think  in  the  very  attempt  to 
think  away.  Such  is  our  notion  of  infinity  ;  and 
all  a  priori  reasoning  for  the  being  of  a  God  will  be 
found  to  rest  on  some  phase  or  other  of  this  notion. 
It  errs  not  in  its  appeal  to  such  fundamental  neces- 
sities of  human  thought,  but  in  its  attempt  to  con- 
struct out  of  them  a  logical  demonstration  of  the 
Divine  Existence.  "We  will  confine  ourselves,  for 
the  sake  of  illustration,  to  what  is  commonly 
known  as  the  Cartesian*  argument.  The  argument 
of  Dr.  Clarke,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  priori,  lies  open  to 
the  same  criticism.  This  argument,  however,  as 

*  The  name  of  Des  Cartes  has  been  especially  associated  with 
the  a  priori  argument,  and  to  him  must  undoubtedly  be  al- 
lowed the  merit  of  having  launched  it,  as  a  pregnant  problem, 
into  the  current  of  modern  speculation.  The  argument,  how- 
ever, in  all  that  it  essentially  imports,  is  as  old  as  the  first 
dawn  of  scholasticism,  of  which  it  is  so  genuine  a  product. 
The  germ  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  the  great  father 
of  the  Scholastic  Philosophy  (Augustine,  2d  chap.  De  Lib.  Arbit.), 
and  in  the  writings  of  Anselm  and  Aquinas.  In  those  of  the 
former  it  is  even  set  forth  in  a  strictly  formal  and  scientific 
manner,  which  the  student  may  consult  as  presented  in  Hagen- 
bach's  History  of  Doctrines,  vol.  i.  p.  443  et  seq. 

It  is  a  somewhat  curious  fact  to  find  Des  Cartes,  who  so  em- 
phatically stands  at  the  head  of  our  modern  free  inquiry,  the 
patriarch  of  that  speculative  spirit  which  has  born  such  strange 
fruits  of  intellectual  daring,  and  who  himself  manifests  in  his 
Meditations  a  tone  of  such  intense  originality,  reverting  to  a  fa- 
miliar doctrine  of  the  expiring  scholasticism  as  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  principles  of  the  new  philosophical  certitude 
which  he  aimed  to  establish. 


830  THEISM. 

already  observed  in  the  Introduction,  is  not  strictly 
a  priori,  setting  out  as  it  does  from  an  express  fact 
of  observation  or  of  sensible  experience.  The  re- 
markable argument  of  Mr.  Gillespie,*  which,  as  a 
specimen  of  a  priori  speculation,  certainly  claims  to 
be  ranked  along  with  any  thing  in  British  philo 
sophical  literature,  comes  still  more  directly  within 
the  scope  of  our  objection. 

We  select  our  statement  of  the  Cartesian  argu- 
ment from  the  replies  to  the  Objections  to  the  Medi- 
tations,^ where  it  is  found  in  a  form  the  most  rigidly 
demonstrative,  and  which  may  very  well  stand  as 
the  type  of  all  possible  a  priori  argumentation  on 
the  subject.  The  following  is  the  proposition  to  be 
proved,  and  the  mode  of  demonstration : — 

Proposition. — "The  existence  of  God  is  known 
from  the  consideration  of  His  nature  alone." 

Demonstration. — "  To  say  that  an  attribute  is 
contained  in  the  nature,  or  in  the  concept  of  a  thing, 
is  the  same  as  to  say  that  this  attribute  is  true  of 
this  thing,  and  that  it  may  be  affirmed  to  be  in  it." 

"  But  necessary  existence  is  contained  in  the  na- 
ture, or  in  the  concept  of  God." 

"  Hence  it  may  with  truth  be  said  that  necessary 
existence  is  in  God,  or  that  God  exists." 


*  The  Necessary  Existence  of  Deity.  By  WILLIAM  GILLESPIE, 
Edinburgh:  1836. 

f  Objections  aux  Meditations,  p.  460,  461;  (Euvres  de  Des 
Cartes,  Par  COUSIN.  Vol.  i.  Paris :  1824. 


REASON  —  INFINITY. 


This  argument,  be  it  observed,  sets  out  from  the 
conception  of  God,  and  infers,  simply  on  the  ground 
of  this  conception,  the  fact  of  His  existence.  More 
particularly,  it  infers  this  fact,  because  necessary 
existence  is  an  essential  element  of  the  conception 
of  God ;  that  is  to  say,  our  conception  of  God,  as 
the  all-perfect  or  the  infinite,  includes  this  special 
phase  of  the  infinite,  necessary  existence ;  and 
therefore  God  exists.  The  character  of  the  concep- 
tion is  made  the  proof  of  the  fact.  This  seems  to 
us  a  fair  explication  of  the  argument.  We  do  not 
now  dwell  upon  the  paralogism  which  *it  may  be 
said  to  involve  in  starting  from  the  conception  of 
God,  which  is  yet  the  very  thing  to  be  found.  "We 
would  only  fix  attention  upon  the  inference  by 
which  it  passes  from  the  concept  to  the  reality — 
from  the  idea  to  the  fact.  Instead  of  uniting  the 
soul  to  objectivity  by  the  very  character  of  its  af- 
firmation in  reason,  the  Cartesian  sets  out  with  the 
subjective  and  reasons  to  the  objective.  The  in- 
finite real  is  with  him  a  logical  inference  from  the 
infinite  ideal  (apprehended  separately)  the  concrete 
from  the  abstract.  A  purely  intellectual  necessity 
is  regarded  as  demonstrative  of  an  actual  existence. 
According  to  our  representation,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  infinite  is  not  apprehended  as  in  the  mind 
at  all  apart  from  reality,  but  as  a  revelation  of  real- 
ity from  the  first — as,  in  short,  not  logically  but  in- 
tuitively given.  The  postulate  of  reason  is  a  reality, 


332  THEISM. 

and  the  logical  necessity  of  the  Cartesian  is  the 
mere  reflection  in  the  understanding  of  this  encom- 
passing reality,  which  stands  face  to  face  with  113-  in 
reason.  In  the  one  case,  the  infinite  is  apprehended 
as  a  fact  in  the  truthful  mirror  of  intuition ;  in  the 
other  case,  the  mind  is  merely  busy  with  a  set  of 
abstract  ideas,  which  are  nothing  else  than  the 
shadow  (reflection)  in  thought  or  logical  form  of 
the  intuitive  fact. 

If,  with  the  Cartesian,  we  take  our  stand  among 
these  abstract  ideas,  we  believe  that  we  can  never, 
by  any  process  of  proof,  reach  th*e  conclusion  at 
which  he  aims.  The  infinite  ideal  can  never  logi- 
cally yield  the  infinite  real.  Kant's  famous  criticism 
of  the  Cartesian  argument  has,  we  think,  established 
so  much  beyond  all  dispute.  He  has  shown,  with 
an  acuteness  and  power  of  reasoning  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  resist,  that  this  argument,  in  passing 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  confounds  a  logi- 
cal with  a  real  predicate — or,  in  other  words, 
stealthily  translates  a  mere  relation  of  thought  into 
a  fact  of  existence,  which  it  does  not  and  can  not 
contain.  The  following  illustration,  used  by  Des 
Cartes,  will  make  this  clear.  The  quotation  is  from 
his  statement  in  the  Principles  of  the  same  argu- 
ment which  we  have  already  given  in  the  more 
precise  form  in  which  it  is  found  in  his  answers  to 
Objections:  "Just  as  because,  for  example,  the 
equality  of  its  three  angles  to  two  right  angles  is 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  333 


necessarily  comprised  in  the  idea  of  a  triangle,  the 
mind  is  firmly  persuaded  that  the  three  angles  of  a 
triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles  ;  so,  from  its 
perceiving  necessary  and  eternal  existence  to  be 
comprised  in  the  idea  which  it  has  of  an  all-perfect 
Being,  it  ought  manifestly  to  conclude  that  this  all- 
perfect  Being  exists." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  at  once  that  there  is  a 
plain  fallacy  here.  The  idea  of  a  triangle  includes 
the  equality  of  its  three  angles  to  two  right  angles ; 
therefore  the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to 
two  right  angles.  This  is  simply  to  affirm  an  identi- 
cal proposition — that  proposition  being  the  invari- 
ability of  the  intellectual  conception  expressed  by 
a  triangle.  The  idea  of  an  all-perfect  Being  in- 
cludes necessary  existence;  therefore  this  all-per- 
fect Being  exists.  This,  on  the  contrary,  is  not 
simply  to  affirm,  as  in  the  former  case,  an  identical 
proposition,  which  would  have  been  only  to  this 
effect,  that  necessary  existence  is  an  essential  con- 
stituent of  the  idea  of  an  all-perfect  Being,  but, 
tacitly  and  illegitimately,  to  pass  from  the  relation 
of  an  intellectual  conception  to  the  reality  of  the 
thing  conceived  ;  whereas  the  only  reality  that  can 
be  given,  as  in  the  parallel  case  of  the  triangle,  is 
the  reality  of  the  relations  of  the  intellectual  con- 
ception. 

Kant  pursues  his  argument  in  the  following  man- 
ner, which  may  perhaps  serve  to  set  it  more 


334  THEISM. 

thoroughly  before  the  reader  :  "  If  I  do  away  with 
the  predicate  in  an  identical  judgment,  and  I  retain 
the  subject — that  is  to  say,  do  away  with  the  equal- 
ity of  the  three  angles  to  two  right  angles,  and  yet 
retain  the  triangle,  or  do  away  with  necessary  ex- 
istence, and  yet  retain  the  idea  of  an  all-perfect  Be- 
ing— a  contradiction  arises.  But  if  I  annul  the  sub- 
ject together  with  the  predicate,  then  there  arises 
no  contradiction,  for  there  is  no  more  any  thing 
which  could  be  contradicted.  To  assume  a  triangle, 
and  yet  to  do  away  with  the  three  angles  of  the 
same,  is  contradictory ;  but  to  do  away  with  the 
triangle  together  with  its  three  angles  is  no  contra- 
diction. It  is  just  the  same  with  the  conception  of 
an  absolutely  necessary  being.  If  you  do  away 
with  the  existence  of  this,  you  thus  do  away  with 
the  thing  itself,  together  with  all  its  predicates  (in 
which  case  there  can  be  no  contradiction.)  .  .  . 
God  is  omnipotent;  this  is  a  necessary  judgment. 
The  omnipotence  can  not  be  done  away  with  if  you 
suppose  a  Divinity — that  is,  an  infinite  Being,  with 
the  conception  of  which  the  fact  is  identical.  But 
if  you  say,  God  is  not,  neither  the  omnipotency, 
nor  any  other  of  His  predicates,  is  then  given  ;  be- 
cause they  are  all  annihilated  together  with  the 
subject,  and  in  this  thought  there  is  not  manifested 
the  least  contradiction."* 

*  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  p.  458;  Kant's  "Werke.     Leipzig: 
1838.     The  matter  is  perhaps  best  of  all  cleared  up  by  Kant's 


REASON  —  INFINITY.  335 

The  Kantian  criticism  must,  we  think,  be  fairly 
allowed  to  be  destructive  of  the  Cartesian  demon- 
stration. However  a  mere  abstract  idea  may  in- 
dicate a  corresponding  reality  (must  in  fact  do  so), 
it  can  never,  if  we  merely  hold  thereby,  constitute 
a  valid  proof  of  it.  We  can  never  logically  pass 
from  the  one  to  the  other.  Just  as  in  perception, 
if  we  endeavor  to  separate  the  contents  therein 
given,  and  hold  merely  with  the  ideal  factor — the 
me — we  can  never  argumentatively  find  the  not- 
me.  "We  can  never  get  out  of  the  subjective  circle. 
But  let  us  only  acknowledge  the  intuitive  character 
of  the  apprehensive  act  in  either  case — in  reason 
as  in  sense — and  we  have  already  an  indisputable 
matter  of  fact  the  me  and  the  not-me,  the  subject 
and  object.  The  infinite,  no  longer  regarded  as  a 
mere  subjective  reflection  in  the  understanding — a 
mere  logical  necessity — but  as  intuitively  given  in 

well-known  distinction  of  analytic  and  synthetic  judgments. 
The  equality  of  three  angles  of  a  triangle  to  two  right  angles  is 
what  he  called  an  analytic  judgment :  that  is  to  say,  a  simple 
writing  out  of  the  conception  already  given  in  a  triangle.  The 
predicate  B  is  already  in  the  subject  A.  Again,  existence,  as  a 
necessary  element  of  the  conception,  God,  is  in  a  similar  man- 
ner an  analytic  judgment — a  simple  writing  out  of  the  concep- 
tion for  which  God  already  stands.  The  predicate  B  (existence 
as  a  conception)  is  already  in  the  subject  A.  But  to  predicate 
existence  as  a  fact  of  the  subject  A,  is  to  pass  out  of  the  sphere 
of  the  conception  altogether,  and,  however  true  in  itself,  can 
never  be  given  in  the  mere  conception.  The  judgment,  in  this 
case,  is  no  longer  analytic,  but  synthetic  ;  that  is  to  say,  some- 
thing is  affirmed,  which  the  mere  explication  of  the  concep- 
tion does  not  yield. 


336  THEISM. 

reason,  needs  and  admits  of  no  further  proof  of  re- 
ality than  its  being  thus  given.  It  is  there — a  living 
Presence,  in  which  alone  the  finite  soul  at  once  ap- 
prehends itself  and  the  ultimate  and  absolute  Be- 
ing whence  it  is.  So  far  from  depending  on  de- 
monstration, it  is,  in  this  view,  a  fact  anterior  to  all 
demonstration,  and  even  the  very  condition  of  that 
logical  thought,  which  in  vain  seeks  to  reach  it. 

And  in  thus  abandoning  all  claim  to  demonstra- 
tion, the  evidence  for  the  being  of  a  God,  so  far 
from  being  weakened,  is  indeed  strengthened.  For 
in  all  our  knowledge  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  higher 
warrant  for  reality  than  the  grasp  of  intuition. 
What  the  soul  thus  holds  by  immediate  presenta- 
_  tion,  is,  and  must  be,  its  most  living  possession — 
the  source  of  all  its  own  elaborate  notions,  and  in 
comparison  with  which  these  are  verily  as  shadows. 
And  thus,  too,  it  deserves  to  be  added,  the  great 
truth  of  the  existence  of  God  is  only  preserved  as 
a  truth  of  religion,  encompassed  with  a  radiance 
of  evidence  which  only  the  willfully  blind  can  fail 
to  see,  yet  not  mathematically  demonstrated,  that 
they  who  devoutly  seek  the  light  may  have  glad- 
ness and  reward  in  its  discovery. 


SECTION    IY. 


DIFFICULTIES  REGARDING  THE  DIVINE 
WISDOM  AND  GOODNESS. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  I. 

STATEMENT  OF  DIFFICULTIES,   ETC. 

WE  have  already  noticed  certain  "difficulties" 
that  directly  meet  us  in  unfolding  the  theistic  argu- 
ment. In  carrying  up  our  varied  trains  of  induc- 
tion from  the  wide  province  of  nature,  we  encoun- 
ter facts,  which  not  only,  on  the  first  view,  do  not 
contribute  to  our  argument,  but  seem  to  stand  in 
obvious  contradiction  to  it. 

These  facts  do  not  meet  us  in  the  outset,  but  only 
as  we  advance.  So  long  as  we  confine  our  range 
of  induction  to  material  phenomena,  to  the  combi- 
nations of  inorganic  matter,  or  even  of  the  lower 
forms  of  organic  existence,  there  is  nothing  that 
can  be  said  to  interrupt  the  harmonious  flow  of  the 
theistic  evidence.  All  is  order,  unbroken  by  check 
or  flaw.  There  is  no  room  for  the  conception  of 
imperfection  or  evil. 

We  trace  certainly,  within  the  domain  of  matter, 
the  signs  of  what  we  are  apt  to  call  disorder.  The 
planetary  system,  in  some  of  its  features,  seems  to 


340  T  11  E  I  S  M  . 

present  indications  of  disturbance.  The  frame  of 
the  earth  has  apparently,  in  past  times,  been  rent 
and  broken  up  by  mighty  throes.  And  there  are 
instances  even  now  of  such  material  convulsions ; 
as  when  the  lightning  desolates,  or  the  volcano 
pours  its  fiery  doom  over  surrounding  towns  and 
villages,  or  the  earthquake  engulfs  them  with  sud- 
den terror.  But  it  is  only  to  us,  or  because  we  con- 
template these  things  in  the  light  of  life,  that  such 
phenomena  assume  for  a  moment  the  appearance 
of  disorder.  In  themselves — apprehended  simply 
in  regard  either  to  their  causes  or  their  material  re- 
salts — such  a  term  has  no  application  to  them ;  for 
they  are  merely  appropriate  issues  in  the  great  plan 
of  physical  development,  whereby  the  constant 
growth  of  its  order  and  beauty  is  maintained. 

When,  however,  we  pass  beyond  material  ar- 
rangements to  those  of  life  in  its  higher  forms,  we 
find  phenomena  which  in  themselves  appear  dark 
and  contradictory.  Pain  emerges  as  a  parallel  fact 
with  pleasure  in  sensation ;  death  as  a  parallel  fact 
with  life  throughout  all  its  range.  The  facts  of 
pain  and  death  are  peculiar  in  this  respect,  that 
they  appear  to  contradict  and  nullify  the  very  order 
amid  which  they  occur:  they  are  evil  amid  the 
good.  It  is  this  conception  of  evil  which,  in  the 
mere  domain  of  matter,  has  obviously  no  place — 
which  constitutes,  in  its  manifold  forms,  the  grand 
difficult?  of  the  Natural  Theologian. 


STATEMENT    OF    DIFFICULTIES.     341 

In  the  sphere  of  animal  life,  evil  is  present  in 
such  apparent  contradictions  as  we  have  now  men- 
tioned, and  especially  in  the  direct  provision  made 
for  the  event  of  these  in  the  existence  of  animals 
of  prey.  The  joy  and  life  of  certain  animals  are 
the  agony  and  death  of  others.  This  arrangement 
of  nature  seems  to  present  itself  as  a  mal-arrange- 
ment. 

In  the  sphere  of  human  life,  evil  is  especially 
present — not  only  in  the  lower  physical  forms  of 
pain  and  death,  but,  moreover,  in  all  the  forms  of 
sorrow  which  disturb  and  vex  the  human  heart, 
the  multiplied  social  evils  of  our  race,  and.  above 
all,  in  the  fact  of  sin,  which  at  once  intensifies,  and 
in  a  manner  comprehends,  every  other  phaso  of 
human  evil. 

These  phenomena,  therefore,  claim  our  special 
examination,  in  reference  to  the  theistic  argument. 
They  seem  to  bear  with  a  show  of  opposing  force 
against  it,  at  least  against  its  full  conclusiveness. 
Their  reality  appears  to  affect  parti*,  ularly  the  truth 
of  the  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness.  With  these 
attributes,  and  eminently  with  the  latter,  the  fact 
of  evil  comes  in  conflict.  It  is,  we  formerly  saw, 
in  immediate  opposition  to  the  good  in  sensation 
that  the  evil  first  emerges ;  but  evil,  being  also  in 
its  very  conception  disorder,  is  no  less  truly  op- 
posed to  wisdom  than  to  goodness. 

It  now  remains  for  us,  therefore,  to  obviate  the 


342 


THEISM. 


difficulties  thence  arising  to  our  argument.  The 
attributes  of  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness,  while 
suffering  under  the  partial  shadow  of  such  points 
of  darkness,  may  yet  be  found,  from  a  thorough 
review  of  the  whole  subject  and  field  of  evidence 
before  us,  to  come  forth  into  even  a  purer  and  more 
glorious  luster  than  if  there  had  been  no  shadow 
to  dissipate — no  evil  to  alleviate. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  II. 

GENERAL   C O  N  S  I D E R AT O N S  . 

BEFORE  entering  on  the  special  examination  of 
the  difficulties  before  us,  it  may  help  to  clear  our 
way,  and  throw  some  light  around  it,  to  draw  at- 
tention to  certain  general  considerations  bearing  on 
the  subject. 

The  first  of  these  arises  from  the  fact,  already 
more  than  once  insisted  upon,  that  phenomena  of 
evil  are  truly  of  an  exceptional  character :  they 
come  before  us  as  exceptions  to  general  order  and 
prevailing  good.  While,  therefore,  they  appear 
formidable  difficulties  when  viewed  by  themselves, 
it  is  not  yet  by  themselves,  but  as  mere  spots  of 
darkness  in  an  otherwise  fair  and  bright  picture, 
that  they  can  fairly  claim  to  be  regarded.  Let  them 
be  considered,  in  the  fullest  sense,  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  complete  theistic  inference — anomalies 
demanding  explanation ;  they  have  yet  no  claim  to 
set  aside  that  inference,  in  virtue  of  their  mero 
existence.  An  indefinite  array  of  facts  bears  wit- 


344  THEISM. 

ness  to  the  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness  with  an 
accumulating  force  of  evidence  which  is  irresistible. 
This  evidence  is  entitled  to  hold  good  its  place  for 
what  it  is  worth,  notwithstanding  that  there  is  a 
certain  amount  of  what  appears  counter-evidence. 
Let  both  go  into  court,  and  be  judged  according  to 
their  respective  value^  but  it  were  surely  a  strange 
injustice  that  the  mere  presence  of  certain  phe- 
nomena appearing  to  form  negative  evidence  should 
be  held,  per  se,  to  dispose  of  the  whole  array  of 
positive  evidence.  It  were  a  strange  injustice  to 
deny  that  any  valid  inference  of  corresponding 
qualities  in  an  artist  can  be  founded  on  the  general 
excellence,  the  harmonious  skill,  displayed  by  his 
work,  because  it  may  contain  what  may  seem  to  us 
imperfections.  And  yet  this  is  really  the  injustice 
which  has  been  perpetrated,  as  with  a  show  of  su- 
perior acuteness,*  against  the  inductive  argument 

*  "  If  the  celebrated  argument  of  design  is  to  hold  good  as 
evidence  in  favor,  it  must  hold  equally  good  as  evidence  against 
the  wisdom  and  benificence  of  the  Creator ; — a  startling  propo- 
sition, and  one,  we  believe,  never  made  before,  but  one  from 
which  logic  has  no  escape.  When  you  point  to  the  perfection 
of  organizations  as  evidence  of  wisdom,  and  to  their  manifold 
enjoyments  as  evidence  of  goodness,  you  force  the  reflective 
mind  to  think  of  the  imperfections  and  the  misery  so  abund- 
antly displayed.  When  you  take  your  -relative  good  for  the 
absolute  good,  you  must  equally  accept  your  relative  evil  for 
the  absolute  evil.  Now  this  is  shocking ;  the  mind  refuses  to 
accept  such  a  conception,  and  would  be  plunged  in  despair,  did 
it  not  learn  that  Wisdom,  Goodness,  Evil,  are  but  relative  terms, 
and  pertain  to  our  human  finite  conditions,  not  to  the  Infinite. 
Yet,  if  men  will  persist  in  measuring  the  Infinite  according  to 


GENE  HAL    CONSIDERATIONS.         345 

for  the  Divine  wisdom  and  beneficence.  It  has 
been  urged,  for  example,  that  the  apparent  imper- 
fections of  nature  as  much  warrant  a  negative,  as 
its  order  a  positive,  conclusion  in  reference  to  the 

their  finite  standard,  they  must  do  so  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other.  Theologians  usually  escape  from  the  dilemma,  by  saying, 
when  any  case  of  manifest  evil  is  propounded,  "  God's  ways 
are  inscrutable :"  and  they  are  right.  But  if  inscrutable  in  one 
direction,  inscrutable  in  all.  We  do  not  understand  evil,  nor 
do  we  understand  good;  the  finite  can  not  understand  the  In- 
finite."— Leader,  No.  116,  July  12,  1852. 

We  present  this  as  a  specimen  of  our  most  recent  anti-thcistic 
logic.  The  passage,  as  it  proceeds,  is  not  without  an  air  of 
speciousness,  which  is  yet,  as  it  appears  to  us,  only  derived  from 
a  perversion  of  the  assumption  against  which  it  is  directed.  It 
is  not  true,  for  example,  that  the  Theologian  takes  the  relative 
good  which  he  finds  in  nature  as  equivalent  to  absolute  good. 
So  far  is  this  from  being  the  case,  that  the  whole  question  as 
to  the  theistic  significance  of  evil  only  occurs  from  the  admis- 
sion that  the  good  in  nature  is  relative.  Were  it  absolute,  or 
assumed  to  be  absolute,  there  would  and  could  be  no  such  ques- 
tion. The  fact  is,  that  the  argument  of  design,  according  to  its 
only  right  interpretation,  and  as  abundantly  evident  from  the 
whole  course  of  our  previous  evidence,  does  not  deal  with  the 
absolute  in  any  sense  at  all  Its  sole  aim  is  to  verify  the  the- 
istic idea,  as  revealed  in  nature.  It  does  not,  therefore,  affect 
to  reach,  far  less  to  understand,  the  Infinite.  It  does  profess, 
however,  to  determine  comprehensively  according  to  their  full 
character  the  theistic  contents  given  in  nature ;  and  its  conclu- 
sion certainly  is  that  wisdom  and  goodness  are  among  their 
number.  Looking  with  an  open  glance  upon  creation,  the  The- 
ologian has  the  evidence  of  wisdom  and  goodness  forced  upon 
him,  and  by  the  laws  of  his  rational  constitution  he  can  not  fail 
to  carry  up  these  attributes  of  creation  to  the  Creator.  But  if 
you  do  this,  says  the  skeptic,  you  are  equally  bound  to  carry  up 
to  the  same  source  the  opposite  attributes  of  "  imperfection  and 
misery  so  abundantly  displayed"  in  creation.  Yes,  bound  to 
carry  them  up  in  the  shape  of  negative  presumptions — but  this 

15* 


346  THEISM. 

Divine  wisdom,  This  is  imagined  to  be  a  peculiar 
hit  of  logic,  which  completely  demolishes  the  the- 
istic  induction !  Yet  surely  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive a  graver  perversion  of  logic.  For  even  ad- 
mitting the  fact  of  such  imperfections  in  nature  as 
are  supposed,  which  may  be  entirely  disputed,  all 
that  logic  can  demand  is,  that  such  phenomena 
shall  not  be  rejected,  and  held  as  of  no  account  in 
the  theistic  evidence.  In  fairness,  they  must  re- 
ceive a  hearing  before  the  conclusion  is  pronounced. 
The  presumptions  of  an  opposite  character  which 
they  involve  must  be  weighed;  but  that  certain 
apparent  anomalies  here  and  there,  which,  the  more 
they  are  examined,  the  less  they  are  seen  to  be 
anomalies,  must  be  allowed  to  set  aside  the  other- 
wise uniform  testimony  of  nature,  is  too  absurdly 
illogical  a  pretension  to  deserve  even  the  notice 
we  have  given  it. 

Even  so  as  to  those  more  serious  aspects  of  misery 
which  exist  in  human  life.  The  very  utmost 
that  can  be  demanded  is,  that  they  be  recognized 
as  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  complete  theistic 
inference.  It  is  certainly  puzzling  that  the  works 

is  all.  And  this  is  really  what  the  Theologian  does,  and  these 
negative  presumptions  are  just  the  difficulties  with  which  he 
has  to  deal.  The  force  of  these  difficulties  may  be  such  as  to 
leave  the  conclusion  of  absolute  goodness  uncertain  on  the 
mere  sphere  of  nature,  this  conclusion  being  only  perfected  in 
the  rational  intuition  of  the  Infinite ;  but  it  can  not  surely  be 
maintained  to  be  such  as  to  leave  the  fact  of  goodness  in  the 
Deity,  ei  en  on  this  sphere,  in  any  degree  uncertain. 


GENERAL    CONSIDERATIONS.         347 

of  a  good  Being  should  be  in  any  respect  marred 
by  unhappiness.  Yet  the  partial  unhappiness  can 
not  for  a  moment  be  entitled  to  set  aside  the  pre- 
vailing happiness.  On  any  fair  principle  of  evi- 
dence, we  must  admit  the  good  for  what  it  truly  is 
— the  rule  of  nature ;  and  the  evil  for  what  it  no 
less  truly  is — only  the  exception.  In  this,  as  it 
appears  to  us,  the  whole  question  at  this  stage  is 
summed  up,  and  we  willingly  leave  the  skeptic  on 
either  horn  of  the  dilemma  he  may  choose ;  namely, 
either  to  deny  that  happiness  is  the  rule  of  creation 
(a  denial  from  which  his  philosophic  insouciance 
would  especially  shrink),  to  or  admit  pro  tanto  the 
validity  of  the  inference  founded  upon  the  rule, 
and  to  join  us  in  the  search  of  whatever  explana- 
tion the  exceptions  may  admit  of. 

And  this  leads  us  to  the  only  other  preliminary 
consideration  which  seems  to  demand  attention.  In 
reviewing  the  phenomena  of  creation,  we  are  to 
bear  in  mind  that  we  only  see  part  of  a  great  plan 
in  progress.  We  can  not,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
see  more.  But  if  we  could  see  the  whole  plan  in 
its  extended  development,  many  things  that  now 
seem  to  us  exceptional  and  contradictory  might 
lose  this  character  altogether,  and  even  expand 
into  special  means  of  advance  in  the  ever-enlarging 
display  of  the  Divine  beneficence.  The  mystery 
which  every  where  encompasses  our  finite  sphere 
of  observation,  may  only  conceal  from  us  the  wia- 


348  THEISM. 

dom  and  the  goodness  that  are  really  present  in 
many  phenomena  where  we  can  not  even  trace 
them.  The  limitation  of  our  faculties  is  thus  re- 
cognized as  in  some  manner  explanatory  of  the 
difficulties  that  meet  us  in  regard  to  our  subject ; 
and  it  is  quite  validly  so  held  in  a  general  sense. 
It  has  been  urged,  indeed,  in  the  same  hostile 
spirit  of  reasoning,  already  noticed,  that  if  the 
limitation  of  our  faculties  is  to  be  called  into  ac- 
count so  far,  it  must  be  admitted  much  further.  It 
ought  truly  to  deter  us  from  pronouncing  any  tbe- 
istic  judgment  at  all  as  to  creation — an  assertion 
which  is  really  tantamount  to  saying  that  we  ought 
to  reject  a  fact  because  we  are  not  able  to  perceive 
all  the  relations  of  that  fact.  We  are  not  to  admit 
that  God  is  good,  because  we  can  not  understand 
the  whole  nature  and  bearing  of  His  goodness. 
We  are  to  refuse  to  believe  what  we  see  and  know, 
because  there  are  certain  things  we  do  not  see  and 
can  not  know.  The  finite  can  not  understand  the 
infinite;  therefore  it  must  pause  in  mere  dumb 
perplexity,  and  not  say  any  thing,  nor  believe  any 
thing.  Reason  instinctively  recoils  from  such  an 
assertion.  It  at  once  rejects  such  a  mere  syllo- 
gistic cavil.  With  a  higher  and  truer  logic,  it  ac- 
cepts the  good,  although  it  may  not  comprehend 
all  its  modes  of  operation.  Looking  out  from  the 
vail  which  covers  its  limited  vision,  it  perceives 
and  acknowledges  the  luster  of  beneficence  all 


GENERAL    CONSIDERATIONS.         349 

around  it,  and  it  only  pauses  where  shadows  seem 
to  cover  that  luster.  We  do  not  deny  the  light  of 
the  sun  because  shadows  here  and  there  intercept 
that  light ;  nay,  there  are  spots,  we  know,  in  the 
very  solar  brightness  itself;  but  this  does  not  pre- 
vent us  day  by  day,  as  we  pass  into  its  presence, 
confessing  the  luster  of  beauty  and  happiness  that 
it  sheds  about  our  path. 

We  rightly  allow,  therefore,  the  theistic  infer- 
ence on  its  positive  side,  while  we  pause  before 
those  negative  facts  that  force  themselves  upon  us. 
We  validly  pause  in  the  one  case,  and  not  in  the 
other,  on  the  broad  ground  that,  in  the  one  case, 
the  immediate  conclusion  is  correspondent  to  our 
rational  instincts,  and  in  the  other  it  is  repellent  to 
those  instincts.  Truly  speaking,  it  is  only  in  the 
latter  case  that  the  region  of  ignorance  and  mystery 
begins.  It  is  only  the  evil  that  is  utterly  un- 
intelligible. It  is  only  in  reference  to  the 
evil  that  the  limitation  of  our  faculties  is  dis- 
played in  absolute  helplessness.  Sightly,  therefore, 
on  every  principle  of  reason,  we  call  this  limitation 
of  our  faculties  as  demanding  a  suspense  of  judg- 
ment in  regard  to  the  evil,  and  not  in  regard  to  the 
good.  In  the  one  case  reason  is  satisfied :  it  rests 
in  the  good,  as  sympathetic  with  it,  and  intelligible 
to  it.  From  the  evil,  on  the  contrary,  it  retreats, 
as  utterly  perplexing ;  and  we  say,  in  such  a  case, 
with  a  justice  which  commends  itself  to  every  heart, 


360  THEISM. 

that  if  we  knew  more — if  our  faculties  were  more 
competent — we  might  understand  what  is  now  so 
dark.  If  our  vision  were  enlarged,  we  might  per- 
ceive that  what  seems  so  anomalous  and  evil  is 
not  really  so.  For  we  are  but  the  creatures  of  a 
day;  and  those  darkened  characters  which  our 
feeble  sight  can  not  read,  may  yet,  to  a  higher  sight, 
be  luminous  with  Divine  light.  The  mystery 
which  we  can  not  explain,  may  disappear  on  a 
wider  horizon  of  knowledge.  Could  we  see  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  it  may  be  best  as  it  is, 
after  all.  The  complications  which  now  yield  us 
no  meaning,  or  one  at  which  we  only  gaze  with 
awe,  may  expand  into  issues  of  beneficence  that 
will  gladden  the  angels,  when  the  great  scheme  is 
complete,  and  the  glory  of  final  victory  is  poured 
backward  through  all  its  darkened  perplexities  and 
most  deeply -lying  shadows. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  III. 

SPECIAL    EXAMINATION    OF  DIFFICULTIES — PHYSI- 
CAL PAIN  AND  DEATH. 

WE  have  already  seen  what  are  the  first  difficul- 
ties which  meet  us  in  the  course  of  our  theistic  in- 
duction. In  the  region  of  sentient  existence,  which 
brings  us  into  the  presence  of  Divine  Goodness,  we 
meet  in  immediate  connection  with  the  phenomena 
of  pleasure,  the  phenomena  of  pain  ;  and  death  we 
find  carelessly  alternating  with  life.  In  examining 
these  difficulties,  we  shall  regard  them  in  their 
widest  manifestation  throughout  the  sphere  of  animal 
being.  Any  special  reference  that  they  may  have 
to  man  will  be  sufficiently  considered  under  those 
higher  forms  of  evil  that  peculiarly  belong  to  him. 

The  first  thing  to  be  said  of  physical  pain  is 
what  we  have  already  urged.*  The  issue  of  the 
sensitive  frame,  according  to  its  regular  and  har- 
monious action,  is  pleasure.  In  health  and  vigor 
— or,  in  other  words,  when  not  interfered  with— it 
gives  forth  pleasure.  There  is  no  part  of  the  sys- 

*  See  pp.  222-224. 


352  THEISM. 

tern  whose  direct  appointed  action  is  pain.  Pain, 
in  short,  is  not  the  production  of  the  sentient  or- 
ganism in  the  same  sense  as  pleasure  is.  It  is  some- 
thing which  attacks  the  organism,  or  is  superinduc- 
ed upon  it ;  not  something  which  springs  directly 
and  necessarily  out  of  it.  It  is  the  exception — pleas- 
ure is  the  rule. 

This  is  a  truly  important  consideration,  which 
no  amount  of  ingenious  sophistry  can  altogether 
turn  aside.  Its  importance  may  be  recognized  from 
the  reflection,  that  if  the  sensitive  organism  had 
been  quite  differently  constituted,  so  that  its  natu- 
ral evolution,  its  very  growth  and  ordinary  action, 
had  been  painful,  and  pleasure  been  merely  its  acci- 
dent, as  pain  now  is — we  do  not  see,  in  such  a  case, 
how  the  Divine  wisdom  and  benevolence  could 
have  been  vindicated.  Imperfection  and  malevo- 
lence would  then  certainly  have  appeared  the  more 
appropriate  inference  from  nature.  Or  even  had 
the  relation  of  the  two  facts,  although  not  exactly 
inverted,  been  altered,  so  that  pain  asserted  itself 
to  be  as  much  a  fact  in  sensitive  life  as  pleasure — 
to  arise  as  immediately  out  of  its  constitution — the 
theistic  inference  would  have  been  thereby  so  ob- 
scured as  to  have  become  powerless  for  conviction 
or  consolation.  The  fact  that,  according  to  unde- 
niable design,  and  equally  undeniable  reality,  pleas- 
ure is  the  normal  expression  of  sensation,  while 
pain  is  merely  its  liability,  is,  therefore,  of  the 


PHYSICAL    PAIN    AND    DEATH.       353 

greatest  significance  for  our  subject,  and  on  no  ac- 
count to  be  lost  sight  of. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  could  not  this  liability  have 
been  averted  ?  Could  not  God  have  so  constituted 
the  sensitive  organism  that  it  should  never  have  is- 
sued in  pain — that  its  free  harmonious  action  should 
not  only  have  been  pleasure,  but  that  it  should 
never  have  been  interfered  with  ?  Might  not  the 
sensitive  instrument  have  been  so  constructed  that 
it  should  not  only  send  forth,  as  it  does,  the  music 
of  happiness,  but  that  the  discord  of  pain  should 
never  have  proceeded  from  it  ?  Would  not  the 
power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  of  God  have  been 
thus  unimpeaohably  conspicuous  ?  Now,  of  course, 
it  is  undeniable  that,  if  God  had  so  willed,  there 
would  have  been  no  pain  in  the  world ;  but  we  are 
by  no  means  so  sure  of  the  conclusion  implied  in 
this.  A  very  different  conclusion,  indeed,  seems 
quite  as  likely.  For  is  it  not  the  very  same  condi- 
tion on  which  pain  is  contingent  that  yields  pleas- 
ure in  so  much  abundance  ?  Is  it  not  the  very 
same  nervous  susceptibility  which  gives  forth,  as 
its  normal  play,  the  sense  of  enjoyment — that 
gives  forth,  as  its  abnormal  play,  the  sense  of  pain  ? 
Is  it  not  the  very  same  medium  which  overflows 
with  gladness  that  may  be  even  invaded  to  mad- 
ness ?  Supposing  the  organism  had  been  made  in- 
capable of  pain,  how  do  we  know  that  it  would 
have  retained  its  capacity  of  pleasure  ?  Supposing 


354  THEISM. 

it  had  been  so  constituted  as  to  have  absolutely 
excluded  the  force  of  disease,  how  do  we  know 
that  it  could  have  owned  the  spring  or  felt  the  joy 
of  health  ?  We  put  the  question  thus,  because  we 
really  do  not  know,  and  can  not  know.  We  may, 
perhaps,  imagine  the  possibility  of  a  susceptibility 
to  pleasure,  without  a  corresponding  susceptibility 
to  pain ;  but,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  they  are  insep- 
arable. A  wholly  different  constitution,  placed  in 
wholly  different  circumstances,  might  have  possess- 
ed the  one  without  the  other.  But  this  is  an  utter- 
ly idle  question  for  us  to  entertain ;  for,  after  all 
(for  aught  we  can  tell),  such  a  constitution,  in  such 
circumstances,  might  not  have  been  nearly  so  good 
as  the  present.  We  can  not  say  it  would.  Kespect- 
ing  a  matter  altogether  beyond  the  sphere  of  our 
knowledge,  we  have  no  means  of  reaching  a  con- 
clusion. Every  such  conjecture,  therefore,  is  en- 
tirely out  of  place.  Looking  at  the  fact  of  things, 
the  only  conclusion  we  can  form  on  the  subject  is, 
that  susceptibility  to  pleasure  and  susceptibility  to 
pain  are  correlative  and  proportional.  The  more 
highly  refined  and  exalted  the  organism,  and  the 
more  exquisite  its  issues  of  pleasure,  the  more  ex- 
quisite also  is  its  liability  to  suffering.  Yet,  as  we 
formerly  saw,  and  as  is  highly  significant  in  the 
actual  arrangements  of  creation,  the  higher  and 
more  richly  susceptible  the  organisms,  the  more 
carefully  defended  are  they.  The  more  life  be- 


PHYSICAL    PAIN    AND    DEATH.       355 

comes  intensified  in  nobler  creations,  the  more  care- 
fully is  its  freight  of  happiness  secured  against 
spoliation,  if,  when  it  is  spoiled,  there  be  a  more 
utter  and  painful  waste. 

Upon  the  whole,  then,  it  seems  that  physical  pain, 
while  a  mere  liability  of  the  nervous  tissue,  whose 
regular  and  healthful  action  is  pleasure,  is  yet  ap- 
parently an  inherent  liability  of  the  same — so  that, 
without  the  contingency  of  pain,  we  could  not  have 
had  the  fact  of  pleasure  ;  and,  apart  from  this  fact, 
we  would  have  been  without  the  inference  of  the 
Divine  goodness ;  for  this  inference  only  rests  on 
the  presence  of  happiness  in  the  creation  as  ita 
foundation.  It  is  only  within  the  sphere  of  sensi- 
tive enjoyment  that  the  light  of  creative  love  dawns 
upon  us ;  and  if  it  be  within  this  sphere  also  that 
a  slight  darkness  first  tinges  our  inductive  horizon, 
it  is  yet  surely  better  to  have  the  light  with  the 
faint  darkness  than  no  light  at  all. 

We  may  further  advert,  even  in  this  lower 
sphere,  to  the  strange  relation  of  affinity  between 
pleasure  and  pain.  So  inlaid  is  the  former  in  the 
sensitive  organism  as  its  appropriate  condition,  that 
while  that  organism  can  not  resist  the  contact  of 
the  latter,  it  yet  often  turns  it  into  a  mean  of  high- 
er pleasure.  The  temporary  suffering  is  transmuted 
into  a  sweeter  joy.  There  is,  in  truth,  a  general 
character  of  balance  and  alternation  in  the  sensi- 
tive frame.  Its  life  is  a  continual  fluctuation  ;  and 


356  THEISM. 

if  the  nervous  chords  were  never  painfully  affected, 
we  do  not  know  how  they  might  lose  in  tone  and 
freshness.  Or,  if  this  be  saying  too  much,  it  is  }ret 
undeniable  that  sensitive  enjoyment  is  dependent 
upon  an  interchange  of  affection  more  or  less  pleasur- 
able— a  succession  of  more  easy  and  less  easy  expe- 
riences ;  and,  under  this  capacity  of  reaction,  even 
the  invading  pain,  as  we  have  said,  becomes  the 
means  of  higher  pleasure  ;  and  the  Divine  wisdom 
and  goodness  are  beheld  asserting  themselves  by 
the  very  presence  of  apparent  disorder  and  evil. 

The  fact  of  death,  in  the  general  animal  king- 
dom,  will  be  found  still  more  readily  than  that  of 
pain  to  yield  a  consistent  theistic  interpretation. 
As  the  goodness  of  God  is  only  manifest  in  the 
display  of  happy  sentient  existence,  it  is  obvious 
that  this  goodness  will  be  more  manifest  the  more 
it  is  beheld  communicating  life  and  happiness. 
The  more  multiplied  and  diversified  sentient  being, 
the  more  abundant  the  evidence  of  Divine  benefi- 
cence. Every  fresh  life,  every  new  birth  of  breath- 
ing and  beautiful  organization,  is  a  renewed  testi- 
mony to  the  Divine  fullness  and  love. 

It  is  clear  then,  that  if  there  had  been  no  such 
thing  as  death  in  the  animal  creation,  this  enjoy- 
ment could  only  have  been  imparted  within  a  com- 
paratively very  limited  extent.  Animal  fecundity 
must  have  been  restrained  within  comparatively 
infinitesimal  bounds,  and  animal  life  consequently 


..- 


PHYSICAL    PAIN    AND    DEATH.       357 

have  been  deficient  in  the  copiousness,  variety,  and 
beauty  of  happiness  which  it  now  exhibits.  There 
could  have  been  in  such  a  case  no  succession  of 
races,  no  giving  place  of  inferior  to  higher  and 
more  complex  organisms,  and  therefore  no  such 
extended  display  of  Divine  wisdom  as  geology  re- 
veals. Numerous  creatures,  who  have  lived  their 
brief  day  of  joy,  could  never  have  been.  In  the 
absence,  then,  of  the  apparent  exception  to  the 
Divine  wisdom  and  goodness,  we  could  not  have 
had  the  same  abundant  manifestations  of  these  at- 
tributes, which  seems  very  much  tantamount  to  a 
satisfactory  proof  that  the  apparent  is  not  a  real  ex- 
ception. That  which  seems  at  first  to  form  an  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  the  theistic  inference,  is  found 
to  issue  in  a  wider  and  more  extended  basis  for  it. 
As  we  look  at  the  mere  fact  of  death  by  itself,  it 
seems  for  a  moment  as  if  there  were  a  flaw  in  the 
all- wise  and  beneficent  arrangements  of  the  world ; 
but,  as  we  look  a  little  more  steadily,  we  see  how, 
in  the  animal  as  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  life 
springs  from  death ;  how  the  extinction  of  one 
generation,  or  it  may  be  race,  is  the  rise  of  others, 
with  equal  and  perhaps  more  exalted  powers  of 
enjoyment.  Death,  in  this  simply  organic  view,  is 
so  far  from  approving  itself  an  irregularity,  or  in 
any  true  sense  an  evil,  that  it  is  the  obvious  con- 
dition of  organic  growth  and  progress  altogether. 
It  is  the  simple  mode  by  which  life  continues  and 


358  THEISM. 

advances  through  its  endless  phases,  taking  to  it- 
self from  every  apparent  pause  a  richer  strength, 
and  rising  from  every  apparent  fall  into  finer  and 
nobler  forms.  The  Divine  wisdom,  therefore,  may 
be  said  to  be  illustrated  instead  of  obscured  by  its 
contemplation,  and  the  Divine  beneficence  to  shine 
with  a  fuller  and  brighter  light  in  its  presence. 

If  we  add  to  these  considerations  the  fact  that 
throughout  the  brute  creation  death  is,  in  whatever 
form,  a  destiny  toward  which  it  blindly  tends,  and 
which,  for  the  most  part,  overtakes  it  with  a  swift 
decision,  which  gives  but  a  minimum  of  pain,  we 
will  have  still  greater  reason  to  rest  in  such  a  con- 
clusion. Even  in  the  article  of  death,  the  brute 
does  not  know  that  it  is  dying,  or  at  least  has  no 
contemplative  realization  of  the  fact,  which  is  what 
gives  all  its  bitterness  to  death  in  man's  special 
case.  The  life  which  has  sported  itself  in  joyful 
hours,  or  days,  or  years,  expires  in  the  brief  pang 
of  a  moment.  Here,  as  every  where,  the  measure 
of  pain  is  found  to  be  strictly  economized,  while 
the  measure  of  life  and  its  enjoyments  is  poured 
forth  with  a  profuse  hand. 

Similar  considerations  serve  to  obviate  the  special 
difficulty  which  has  been  felt  to  arise  from  the  sys- 
tem of  prey  in  the  animal  creation.  If  that  system 
had  not  existed,  it  is  plain  that  an  immense  re- 
straint comparatively  must  have  been  laid  on  animal 
fecundity  and  enjoyment.  If  some  animals  had  not 


PHYSICAL    PAIN    AND    DEATH.       359 

been  destined  to  live  on  others,  many  animals 
could  never  have  lived  at  all.  Merely  vegetable 
produce  could  not  have  sustained  animal  life  in 
any  thing  like  its  present  fullness  and  diversity. 
A  change  in  this  one  respect  would  have  implied 
a  t  change  in  the  whole  existing  relations  of  the 
vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  which  we  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  would  have  been  a  better  arrange- 
ment, while  even  such  a  change  could  not  have 
obviated  the  destruction  of  certain  animals  by  oth- 
ers. For  the  very  movements  of  the  larger  ani- 
mals carry  with  them  death  to  insect  myriads. 
The  ox  crushes  them  with  its  feet  as  it  pastures, 
and  in  many  forms  devours  them  within  the  folds 
of  the  green  leaf.  While  there  is  something, 
therefore,  in  the  system  of  prey,  in  certain  of  its 
manifestations,  regarded  by  themselves,  which 
seems  to  shock  our  sense  of  the  Divine  goodness, 
when  we  enlarge  our  view  we  perceive  that  these 
manifestations  are  only  to  some  extent  special 
modes  of  a  general  law  of  destruction,  which  in 
other  forms  we  do  not  feel  to  be  harsh  and  repel- 
lent ;  and  that,  even  if  they  repelled  us  more  than 
they  do,  they  are  yet  the  condition  of  that  extend- 
ed and  overflowing  presence  of  life  which  we 
every  where  behold.  The  question,  indeed,  es- 
sentially comes  to  be  of  this  kind,  whether  the  dis* 
play  of  goodness  would  have  been  less  affected  by 
the  comparatively  limited  presence  of  life,  than 


360  T  H  E  I  S  M  . 

by  the  special  amount  of  pain  involved  in  the 
system  of  prey  ?  The  question  is  one  that  may  be 
fairly  left  to  the  settlement  which  nature  has  given 
of  it. 

And  all  this  receives  confirmation  from  special 
features  in  the  system  of  prey  which  it  is  well  not 
to  overlook ;  from  the  fact,  for  example,  that  the 
predatory  animal  kills  before  it  devours,  and  es- 
pecially from  the  fact  that  it  commonly  seizes  by 
instinct  on  the  most  vital  part,  where  death  is  most 
suddenly  and  easily  inflicted. 

"We  may  then  fairly  conclude,  upon  the  whole, 
that  the  circumstance  of  organic  extinction  does 
not  in  any  degree  affect  the  inference  of  the  Divine 
wisdom  and  goodness.  It  is  rather  a  means  toward 
their  further  and  grander  display.  There  is,  as  it 
were,  a  partial  hiding  of  the  Divine  character  in  the 
shadow  of  death  thrown  upon  the  picture,  but  it 
is  only  for  the  purpose  of  opening  up  behind  the 
partial  shadow  a  more  extended  and  brighter  dis- 
play of  that  character,  a  more  abundant  and  richer 
manifestation  of  it. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  IV. 

SPECIAL  EXAMINATION  CONTINUED — SORROW. 

IT  is,  however,  in  the  sphere  of  human  life  that 
evil  appears  in  its  most  marked  and  difficult  forms. 
It  is  only  here,  indeed,  that  evil,  in  the  peculiar 
and  emphatic  sense  in  which  we  commonly  use  the 
term,  is  found  at  all.  It  is  here  that  it  assumes  at 
once  a  malignity  which  defies  palliation,  and  a  dark- 
ness which  is  still  profound  when  we  have  thrown 
upon  it  the  clearest  light  which  nature  or  even 
revelation  supplies. 

This  mystery  of  evil  in  humanity  from  the  first 
assumes  all  its  special  hatefulness  and  darkness 
from  the  element  of  moral  corruption  which 
mingles  in  it,  and  which,  in  all  its  forms,  it  more  or 
less  indicates.  If  it  were  not  this  moral  element, 
there  would  remain  nothing  peculiar,  save  its  dig- 
nity, in  human  evil.  It  is  the  presence  of  a  deeper 
shadow  lying  within  the  varied  shades  which 
checker  human  life,  that  alone  gives  to  them  all 
their  special  mournfulness,  and  constitutes  that 
16 


362  THEISM. 

master-problem  before  which  speculation  retires 
baffled,  and  the  heart  stands  in  awe.  It  is  import- 
ant now  to  bring  this  into  view,  because,  while  we 
trust  to  be  able  to  show  various  considerations  tend- 
ing to  mitigate  the  common  ills  of  our  race,  and 
even  to  transmute  them  into  good,  we  would  yet 
have  it  be  seen,  from  the  outset,  that  these  ills — 
deriving  as  they  do  their  worst  hue  from  that 
deeper  evil  which  lies  behind — at  the  same  time 
find  in  it  their  highest  explanation.  The  fact  of 
sin,  if  it  intensifies  the  picture  of  human  suffering, 
at  the  same  time  serves  to  account  for  it.  The  less 
er,  and,  as  it  were,  accessory  evils,  become  intelli- 
gible in  the  greater.  While  striving  to  carry  the 
light  of  special  explanation  along  with  us,  it  is,  ac- 
cordingly, of  some  consequence  to  see  that,  in  this 
darker  difficulty  of  sin,  all  the  lower  difficulties 
finally  merge.  To  it  they  are  easily  pushed  back. 
In  this  grand  enigma  all  other  enigmas  of  human 
life  gather  up  and  concentrate  themselves.  If  the 
problem,  therefore,  acquires  only  a  more  inexplica- 
ble character  in  the  end,  it  is  yet  reduced  to  a 
single  point,  from  the  very  intensity  of  whose  mys- 
tery a  clearer  explanation  falls  upon  its  lower 
]evels. 

Under  what  is  commonly  meant  by  sorrow  in 
the  widest  sense,  we  may  sum  up  the  different  ex- 
pressions of  human  evil.  How  pervading  a  pres- 
ence sorrow  is,  it  is  needless  to  say.  There  is  no 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION — SORROW.      363 

heart  which  it  has  not  touched,  there  is  no  life 
which  it  has  not  darkened.  In  one  form  or  another 
it  is  all  around  us,  and  its  shadow  traces  all  earthly 
joy.  Its  presence  is  not  only  to  be  measured  by 
its  outward  manifestation ;  it  lies  deep  in  the  soul 
of  many  whose  brow  may  yet  be  clear.  It  cuts 
into  many  a  heart  which  gives  no  sign  of  bleeding. 
Of  a  certain  great  man,*  who  has  written  many 
fine  things  about  sorrow,  it  is  said  that,  when  he 
lost  his  son,  no  one  could  read  in  his  face  any  sign 
of  peculiar  emotion ;  but  it  was  observed  that  he 
"worked  harder  than  ever."  In  this  way  he 
sought  to  stay  the  bursting  fountain  of  bereaved 
feeling ;  and  so  free  and  commanding,  and,  it  may 
be  added  withal,  so  cold  a  nature  no  doubt  succeed- 
ed in  his  attempt.  Yet  there  are  also  those  who, 
though  they  never  any  more  show  it,  mourn  inward- 
ly with  a  keenness  only  the  more  intense  that  it  lac- 
erates in  secret.  There  are  those  who  bear  their 
sorrow,  a  secret  presence  of  unrest  only  the  more 
bitter  that  'it  finds  no  expression,  and  seeks  no  sym- 
pathy. It  lurks  behind  many  a  smile,  and  covers 
itself  over  with  frequent  brightness. 

Now  it  is  certainly  at  first  a  very  perplexing 
question  why  it  should  be  so — why  human  life 
should  be  thus  largely  traced  and  embittered  by 
sorrow.  This  life  is  no  doubt  also  full  of  joy — 
more  full  of  joy,  we  must  hold,  after  all,  than  sor- 

*  Goethe. 


364  THEISM. 

row.  And  upon  this  fact  of  enjoyment,  in  the 
emotional  as  in  the  lower  sensational  sphere — a  fact 
so  diffused  and  pervading  as  to  be  from  its  very 
nature  ]ess  susceptible  of  analysis  and  exhibition 
than  the  contrary  fact — we  based  our  theistic  infer- 
ence. Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  we  have  here, 
in  this  widespread  reality  of  sorrow,  a  peculiar  diffi- 
culty in  the  way  of  that  inference. 

This  difficulty  we  might  to  some  extent  obviate, 
on  the  same  grounds  as  those  set  forth  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter.  It  is  the  same  emotional  suscepti- 
bility which  renders  us  at  once  capable  of  joy  and 
of  sorrow.  The  same  source  of  feeling  in  the 
breasts  of  parents,  which  finds  such  gratification  in 
the  health  and  prosperity  of  their  children,  over- 
flows with  such  bitterness  for  their  suffering  or 
death ;  the  same  capacity  which  makes  success,  or 
honor,  or  fame,  so  pleasurable,  makes  also  misfor- 
tune, contempt,  or  disgrace  so  grievous.  If  we 
wanted  the  capacity  of  sorrow,  we  do  not  know 
that  we  could  have  the  capacity  of  joy.  But  cer- 
tainly, this  subjective  contingency  of  pain  and 
pleasure,  of  sorrow  and  joy,  does  not  explain  in 
either  case  the  actual  amount  of  the  evil  or  negative 
element.  We  are  led,  therefore,  to  seek  for  some 
higher  means  of  explanation  as  to  the  prevalence  of 
suffering  in  human  life.  The  following  consider- 
ations may  serve  to  throw  some  measure  of  light 
upon  the  subject. 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SORROW.      365 

Man  comes  into  the  world  a  being  of  mixed  pas- 
sions and  affections.  The  infant  that  smiles  so 
placidly  on  its  mother's  breast  contains  in  it,  with 
the  capacity  of  indefinite  spiritual  improvement, 
the  seeds  of  selfish  development,  which  would 
grow,  if  unhindered,  into  all  inordinate  forms  of 
lust  and  unhappiness.  Human  life,  therefore,  needs 
to  be  beset  with  agencies  fitted  to  check  the  one 
and  to  stimulate  the  other.  And  of  all  these  agen- 
cies, suffering  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  ef- 
fectual, one  of  the  most  powerful  for  the  promotion 
of  moral  culture.  It  is  true  that  men  may  suffer 
much,  and  yet  be  little  bettered — nay,  that  suffer- 
ing, in  its  baser  and  more  ordinary  forms,  may 
tend  to  nurture  a  soul  in  wickedness  rather  than 
in  goodness ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  truth  of  the 
most  undeniable  and  manifest  character,  that  sor- 
row, in  all  its  higher  forms,  is  a  Divine  discipline 
of  the  most  precious  and  signally  beneficial  kind. 
It  brings  the  soul  into  contact  with  ennobling  in- 
fluences from  a  higher  region  of  spiritual  life  than 
surrounds  it  here.  It  awakens  in  it  more  directly 
than  any  thing  else  the  consciousness  of  the  infinite, 
and  calls  forth  in  it  more  energetically  than  any 
thing  else  that  quick  sympathy  with  the  lofty  and 
the  pure,  and  that  ardent  aspiration  after  the  good, 
which  are  the  most  constant  and  unfailing  springs 
of  happiness  on  earth.  The  weeping  of  the  night 
is  thus  turned  into  the  joy  of  the  morning.  The 


366  THEISM. 

soul  that  may  have  lain  under  the  deepest  shadow, 
rises  to  stronger  and  more  beautiful  altitudes  of 
virtue.  Heaven  has  been  about  it  in  its  sorrow, 
and  it  comes  forth  brighter  from  its  converse  with 
darkness,  and  better  and  happier  from  its  dwelling 
in  the  "house  of  mourning."  Faith  guides  it 
henceforth  with  a  firmer  step,  and  Hope  cheers  it 
by  a  steadier  light,  and  Love  sustains  it  with  a 
more  enduring  fervor.  Patience  only  grows  in  the 
valley  of  suffering,  and  humility  is  only  purified 
by  the  fire  of  trial.* 

Nor  does  sorrow  only  lift  the  soul  into  a  higher 
region  of  spiritual  excellence  for  its  own  strength- 
ening and  improvement,  but  it  arouses  as  nothing 
else  does  its  activities  for  the  good  of  others.  It 
not  only  opens  up  heaven  to  us,  but  it  sheds  a  new 
interest  upon  earth,  and  a  glory  falls  from  under 
its  vail  on  the  lowliest  lot  of  man.  All  life  be- 
comes sacred  to  it — all  men  are  brethren  to  its 
purged  and  softened  vision.  It  is  the  rich  fount- 
ain that  feeds  in  us  the  well  of  sympathy.  It  is 
the  strong  passion  that  kindles  in  us  the  holy  rage 
of  philanthropy.  Nature  assumes  a  lovelier  aspect, 
and  is  luminous  with  a  diviner  meaning,  to  the 

*  The  sorrow  spoken  of  is,  of  course,  in  its  highest  sense,  that 
spiritual  exaltation  of  passion  which  is  of  the  character  of  re- 
ligion. Sorrow,  apart  from  any  element  of  religion,  is  rather  a 
bankruptcy  of  the  passion  than  any  true  phase  of  it — what  we 
call  despair.  Of  this  kind  is  that  "sorrow  of  the  world  that 
worketh  death." 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION — SORROW.      367 

gaze  of  sorrow.  It  is — strange  as  it  may  be — the 
mirror  in  which  man  sees  most  deeply  into  truth 
and  beauty  in  all  their  relations  ;  so  that  whatever 
may  be  the  perplexity  of  its  presence  in  human 
life,  regarded  from  a  mere  intellectual  point  of 
view,  it  is  practically  so  great  and  comprehensive 
an  agency  of  good,  operating  withal  so  subtly  and 
silently  in  numerous  hearts,  that  humanity  has 
cause  to  bless  its  presence  and  be  grateful  for  its 
work.  The  man  who  knows  not  its  consecrating 
power  is  a  loser  in  far  more  respects  than  he  can 
possibly  be  a  gainer.  He  may  be  free  from  its 
painful  lessons,  but  he  misses  therewith  the  wis- 
dom and  the  well-being  that  only  comes  from  such 
lessons. 

"He  that  lacks  time  to  mourn,  lacks  time  to  mend: 
Eternity  mourns  that.     'Tis  an  ill  cure 
For  life's  worst  ills  to  have  no  time  to  feel  them. 
Where  sorrow 's  held  intrusive,  and  turned  out, 
There  wisdom  will  not  enter,  nor  true  power, 
Nor  aught  that  dignifies  humanity."* 

The  value  of  sorrow,  as  a  beneficial  element  of 
spiritual  discipline  in  human  life,  it  is  interesting 
to  remark,  has  received  very  special  and  emphatic 
recognition  in  our  modern  literature.  The  com- 
prehensive types  of  ethical  truth  which  Christian- 
ity first  revealed  would  now  seem  to  be  passing 
into  freer  literary  currency,  and  asserting  a  more 

*  TAYLOR'S  Philip  van  Artevclde. 


368  THEISM. 

pervading  power.  The  worth  and  beauty  of  earn- 
estness, sympathy,  and  patience — the  scorn  of  the 
false,  and  the  love  of  the  honest  and  brave — the 
many  forms  of  manly  and  womanly  excellence 
which  only  spring  in  their  full  vigor  from  "  the 
divine  depths  of  sorrow" — meet  us  every  where  in 
the  ideal  pictures  of  the  novelist  and  the  impas- 
sioned strain  of  the  poet.  Looking  on  life  with  a 
nobler  or  at  least  more  comprehensive  spiritual  in- 
sight than  heretofore,  literature  does  homage  to  the 
blessed  function  of  sorrow ;  and  while  it  gathers 
to  itself  the  strength  which  comes  from  it,  labors 
with  a  rare  devotion  to  remedy  all  its  baser  sources, 
and  to  stanch  its  most  bleeding  wounds. 

We  are  of  course  aware,  in  all  that  we  have 
been  saying,  that  the  mere  notion  of -such  a  discip- 
linary or  remedial  function  as  is  exercised  by  suf- 
fering, suggests  a  ready  answer  to  the  course  of 
argument  we  have  rested  on  it.  Why  was  man;  it 
may  be  asked,  so  constituted  as  to  need  all  this 
discipline  ?  Is  not  this  the  real  point  with  which 
the  theistic  argument  requires  to  deal — the  fact  of 
man  being  found  so  morally  imperfect  as  to  need 
so  largely  as  he  does  the  hard  and  bitter  education 
of  sorrow  ?  This  obviously  points  in  the  last  re- 
lation to  that  deeper  aspect  of  our  subject  that 
awaits  us ;  yet  a  few  remarks  seem  here  to  deserve 
attention. 

All  spiritual  life,  in  its  very  conception,  implies 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SORROW.     369 

an  education  or  discipline.  Virtue  only  realizes 
its  meaning  in  trial.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  we 
can  conceive  a  discipline  merely  from  one  degree 
of  good  to  another — that  we  can  conceive  spiritual 
life  nourishing  in  its  most  exalted  forms  without 
any  background  of  evil  whereon  to  reflect  its  ex- 
cellence ;  yet  it  must  be  also  admitted  that  in  the 
very  fact  of  trial  there  lies  the  possibility  of  failure 
• — of  a  sinking  below  the  good,  as  well  as  a  rising 
to  higher  measures  of  it.  In  the  simple  fact  of 
moral  action  there  lies  the  contingency  of  wrong 
action,  and  of  all  that  moral  imperfection  that 
actually  exists  in  the  world. 

Nay,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  (to  take  a  further  view 
of  the  subject,  which  must  yet  be  very  cautiously 
ventured  on)  that  even  the  realization  of  the  evil — 
the  possibility  of  failure  become  a  fact — bears  in  it 
something  of  good  of  which  we  can  not  otherwise 
very  well  conceive.  The  very  presence  of  moral 
evil  calls  forth  peculiar  phases  of  virtue — a  richer 
and  more  various  fullness  of  moral  excellence.  We 
are  far  from  saying  that  this  serves  in  the  remotest 
degree  to  explain  the  evil.  No  view  could  be 
further  from  our  whole  mode  of  thought  than  this, 
which  strikes  its  root  deep  in  an  abyss  of  -panthe- 
ism. We  are  not  now  dealing  with  the  final  ex- 
planation of  the  fact,  only  pointing  out  that  it  is 
not  utterly  unassociated  with  good.  Good  even 
seems  to  spring  from  it.  The  virtue  which  is  a  vic- 
16* 


370  THEISM. 

tory  over  evil,  a  hard-earned  triumph  against  foes 
that  have  lain  in  wait  for  it  all  along  its  path,  seems 
a  nobler  thing  than  the  virtue  which  has  never 
been  so  proved.  From  the  very  bitterness  of  the 
culture  springs  the  precious  ripeness  of  the  fruit. 
This  does  not  certainly  explain  the  evil,  but  it  is 
at  once  significant  and  cheering  to  find  that  its 
presence  thus  calls  forth  a  more  enduring  and  ex- 
alted good. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  V. 

SPECIAL  EXAMINATION  CONTINUED — SOCIAL  EVILS. 

THE  survey  of  human  life,  in  its  social  aspects — 
in  its  aggregate  character  of  communities  and  na- 
tions— presents  perhaps  more  to  perplex  the  con- 
templative mind  than  any  other  view  of  it.  The 
disorders  which  meet  us  in  such  a  survey  are  so 
numerous,  and  many  of  them  of  such  appalling 
magnitude,  that  even  the  most  devout  have  been 
sometimes  led  to  ask  themselves  whether,  after  all, 
human  history  can  be  considered  as  a  development 
of  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness.  The  evils  of  op- 
pression, of  miserable  poverty,  of  social  degradation 
in  all  its  shapes,  so  cover  with  their  dark  shadows 
the  historical  picture,  that  the  epical  and  beneficent 
lights  of  it  seem  often  entirely  obscured.  And  even 
at  this  better  and  brighter  stage  of  the  world's  pro- 
gress, and  in  such  a  land  as  our  own,  where  the 
higher  social  influences  may  be  supposed  working 
as  actively  at  least  as  any  where  else,  how  much  is 
there  to  sadden  and  bewilder  the  view  I  To  any 


372  THEISM. 

man  in  whom  the  faculties  of  heart  and  soul  are  full, 
who  has  a  mind  to  see,  and  a  bosom  to  be  touched 
with  the  miseries  around  him,  and  upon  whom  has 
come  even  some  dim  sense  of  the  infinite  capacities 
and  issues  of  all  human  life,  it  is  certainly  a  most 
mournful  and  perplexing  contemplation,  that,  with 
advancing  civilization,  and  such  vast  and  ever- 
strengthening  resources  of  science  and  art  and 
wealth,  there  should  remain  so  black  and  fearful  a 
foil  to  the  brightness — that  by  the  side  of  all  this 
glittering  increase  there  should  harbor  such  dread- 
ful sickening  masses  of  human  deterioration  and 
suffering. 

Sad  as  are  the  social  evils  which  thus  force  them- 
selves upon  us,  whether  in  the  view  of  the  past  or 
the  present,  a  few  considerations  will  perhaps  serve 
— so  far  as  our  subject  is  concerned — to  obviate  the 
difficulties  that  may  be  felt  to  arise  from  them. 

And  first  of  all,  we  must  not  overlook  the  con- 
viction which,  shaken  as  it  may  be  in  certain  moods, 
never  fails  to  return  to  the  contemplative  mind, 
that,  under  whatever  appearances  to  the  contrary, 
the  collective  life  of  mankind  in  history  "yet  asserts 
itself  to  be  "  an  immutable  moral  order,  constituted 
by  Divine  wisdom."*  The  assurance  '  that  there 
is  an  eternal  order  in  the  government  of  the  world, 
to  which  all  might  and  power  are  to  become,  and 
do  become,  subservient;  that  truth,  justice,  wis- 
*  BUNSEN'S  Hippolytus  aid  His  Age  (Aphorisms),  ii.  p.  3. 


SPECIAL   EXAMINATION — SOCIAL  EVILS.  373 

dom,  and  moderation,  are  sure  to  triumph"*— this 
assurance,  which  is  apt  to  falter  while  the  gaze 
dwells  on  the  mere  imperfections  of  the  picture, 
comes  back  with  a  clear  force  on  its  more  intelli- 
gent survey.  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness  are 
recognized  as  governing  the  world,  and  as  drawing 
forth  from  all  its  disorders  and  miseries,  hopeless 
as  they  may  sometimes  seem,  mighty  and  harmoni- 
ous issues  of  happiness.  This  is  not  a  conclusion 
merely  imported  from  Christian  teaching,  and  held 
as  a  matter  of  faith,  however  Christianity  may  have 
shed  illumination  on  it;  but  it  is  really  a  conclu- 
sion, upon  the  whole,  vindicating  itself  upon  the 
facts  of  the  case,  and  becoming  more  clear  as  these 
facts  develop  themselves  to  the  historical  student. 

But  not  only  does  the  theistic  inference  thus  as- 
sert itself  even  in  the  face  of  the  difficulties  that  be- 
set it ;  these  difficulties  are  found  on  examination 
somewhat  to  clear  away.  It  is  felt  especially,  and 
from  the  very  lowest  point  of  view,  that  the  worst 
of  the  social  evils  from  which  man  has  suffered  in 
the  past,  or  still  suffers,  are  not  in  any  sense  to  be 
regarded  as  a  part  of  the  Divine  constitution  of  the 
world,  but  really  infringements  thereof,  taking 
their  rise  in  the  invasion  of  that  constitution  by 
man's  impious  selfishness.  The  misrule,  and  the 
servile  and  unhappy  bondage  of  mind  and  body, 
of  which  so  many  are  the  victims,  are  felt  to  arise, 

*  BUNSEN'B  Hippolytus  and  His  Age  (Aphorisms),  ii.  p.  6. 


374  THEISM. 

not  from  the  Divine  appointment,  but  from  the  di- 
rect violation  and  contempt  of  it.  This  view,  if  it 
does  not  liberate  us  from  the  problem,  yet  throws 
it  back  here  also  upon  that  last  aspect  of  it,  whose 
consideration  awaits  us.  The  question  comes  to 
be  one  not  regarding  the  consequent  evils,  fearful 
as  they  may  be,  but  regarding  the  primary  evil  in 
which  they  originate — regarding,  in  short,  the  fact 
or  possibility  of  man's  selfishness  opposing  itself  to 
the  Divine  order.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  this  becomes 
the  ultimate  and  comprehensive  difficulty  into 
which  the  others  run  up,  and  in  which  they  find 
their  explanation. 

Jt  is  farther  to  be  remembered,  that  many  of  the 
phenomena  of  social  life,  which,  in  their  aggravated 
form,  must  be  regarded  as  evils,  are  merely  the 
negative  side  of  that  general  condition  upon  which 
the  whole  advance,  and  even  the  very  existence, 
of  civilization  depend.  The  inequality  of  social 
advantage,  and  the  consequently  partial  distribu- 
tion of  material  and  intellectual  good,  even  to  the 
extreme  disproportion  we  observe  in  such  a  coun- 
try as  our  own,  are  unquestionably,  in  their  spring, 
the  mere  results  of  that  inequality  of  endowment, 
without  which  we  can  not  conceive  human  im- 
provement to  proceed  at  all.  Not  that  we  would 
be  supposed  to  impy  that  any  national  life  is  to  be 
considered  as  furnishing  an  example  of  the  neces- 
sary, or,  in  other  words,  divinely  constituted  rela- 


SPECIAL   EXAMINATION — SOCIAL  EVILS.  375 

tions  of  poverty  and  wealth.  Far  from  it.  It  were, 
we  apprehend,  a  poor  faith  that  did  not  cherish 
some  higher  solution  of  the  social  problem  than 
has  yet  been  any  where  exemplified.  The  exist- 
ing extremes  of  social  wretchedness  and  social 
grandeur,  are  certainly  not  the  appointments  of 
Divine  order,  but  the  disarrangements  of  human 
selfishness.  And  it  is  only  such  a  faith  that  could 
sustain  the  philanthropist  in  his  labor  of  earnest- 
ness, or  his  hopes  of  a  higher  future  of  national 
well  being.  Yet  that  a  certain  inequality  of  social 
condition,  directly  springing  from  inequality  of  per- 
sonal endowment,  is  the  law  of  human  progress, 
and  therefore  the  appointment  of  Divine  wisdom, 
is  not  to  be  doubted ;  and  while  we  contemplate 
the  serious  evils  that  have  taken  indirectly  their 
rise  in  this,  we  are  equally  bound  to  regard  the 
general  advancement,  the  vastly  increasing  social 
well-being,  that,  upon  the  whole,  have  flowed  from 
it.  Social  equality — which,  as  the  presumed  secu- 
rity against  oppression  and  poverty,  and  all  the 
characteristic  ills  of  civilization,  has  been  the 
lauded  dream  of  political  enthusiasts — is  not  only 
no  part  of  the  Divine  constitution  of  the  world,  but 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  would  fulfill 
the  ends  of  "  political  justice  "  and  happiness  that 
have  been  attributed  to  it ;  we  have  every  reason, 
indeed,  to  believe  the  contrary.* 

*  All  this  bearing  of  our  subject,  upon  which  we  touch  very 


376  THEISM. 

Here,  therefore,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  question 
comes  to  be  really  one  as  to  the  wisdom  and  good- 
ness shown  in  the  general  plan  of  such  a  world  as 
ours  at  all — a  world  whose  essential  character  is 
that  of  development.  For  inequality  would  seem 
to  be  the  condition  of  development ;  while,  again, 
the  evils  we  speak  of  are  obviously  contingent  upon 
this  inequality.  And  in  this  point  of  view,  so  far 
as  we  are  capable  in  any  degree  of  rising  to  it,  it 
will  perhaps  be  admitted  that  progress,  with  all  its 
attendant  evils,  is  yet  a  better  and  nobler  thing 
than  any  thing  else  we  can  well  imagine.* 

And  while  we  are  thus,  by  enlarging  our  view, 
enabled  to  see  in  many  of  the  phenomena  of  social 
evil  merely  the  contingent  results  of  that  general 


incidentally,  is  discussed  with  fullness,  and  at  the  same  time  ad- 
mirable clearness  and  calmness,  in  Archbishop  Sumner's  Treat- 
ise, which  received  one  of  the  prizes  when  the  subject  .was  pre- 
viously prescribed  in  1814  (vol.  ii.  pp.  40,  118.)  Here,  as 
throughout,  objections  which  peculiarly  deserved  attention  then, 
no  longer  need  any  special  treatment. 

*  It  might  no  doubt  be  asked,  Could  we  not  have  had  the  ad 
vantage  of  development  without  the  disadvantage  ?  To  which 
we  can  only  reply,  that  it  was  no  doubt  possible  that  human 
history  might  have  been  a  development  of  good  throughout ; 
had  man  not  sinned,  we  have  reason  to  believe  it  would  have 
been  so ;  yet,  in  the  mere  fact  of  moral  development,  evil  is  con- 
tingent, and,  consistently  with  the  nature  of  that  development, 
could  not  have  been  absolutely  excluded.  Here,  equally  as  in 
the  individual,  the  possibility  of  disorder  lies  in  the  very  char- 
acter of  the  life  to  be  trained  and  developed.  And  here,  there- 
fore^ again  we  see,  as  every  where  in  this  legion,  that  the  ques- 
tior  is  thrown  back  upon  this  ultimate  mystery. 


SPECIAL  EXAMINATIO N — S OCIAL  EVILS.  377 

plan  of  progress,  by  which  the  world  is  upon  the 
whole  advancing  in  wisdom  and  happiness,  it  is 
still  further  to  be  considered,  that  beneath  the  ag- 
gregate darkness  of  some  of  these  phenomena  there 
is  often  found  much  individual  happiness.  True 
also,  we  are  apt,  from  familiarity  with  such  phe- 
nomena, to  underrate  the  fearful  amount  of  actual 
suffering  which  they  represent.  Yet,  upon  the 
whole,  the  balance  lies  on  the  other  side.  There  is 
such  a  powerfully  elastic  spring  of  happiness  in  the 
human  heart,  that  its  presence,  even  in  intense 
forms,  is  not  to  be  denied  under  the  darkest  op- 
pression and  the  most  utter  poverty.  Even  among 
those  who  live  under  systems  of  the  cruelest  and 
most  godless  injustice,  there  maybe  found  circulat- 
ing the  free  flow  of  exalted  and  joyous  sentiment. 
In  the  miserable  cabin  of  many  a  poor  African 
there  may  be  heard  the  voice  of  melody ;  and  pure 
affection  and  simple  piety  may  gladden  many  an 
otherwise  dark  and  comfortless  home.  The  soul 
may  be  emancipated  while  the  body  is  enslaved, 
and  sunshine  may  cheer  the  heart  while  ungrateful 
toil  wearies  the  bones.  Happiness,  the  sweetest 
and  least  interrupted  on  earth,  may  certainly  be- 
long to  the  lot  of  righteous  poverty ;  and  even  in 
circumstances  the  least  favorable,  it  is  consolatory 
to  reflect  that  happiness  is  not  bound  by  the  im- 
pious devices  of  tyrannic  power — that  it  can  find  a 
nest  for  itself  even  where  industrial  misrule  or  law- 


378  THEISM. 

less  despotism  may  have  labored  most  zealously  to 
extinguish  it. 

And,  finally,  the  light  of  a  higher  explanation  is 
beheld  breaking  upon  us  from  the  future,  as,  with 
the  growth  of  human  improvement,  the  "increas- 
ing purpose"  of  Beneficence  becomes  more  mani- 
festly stamped  on  all  the  ciyil  relations  of  the 
world,  and  "  a  purer  order  and  diviner  laws"  are 
even  now  beginning  to  bind  into  a  nobler  life  its 
multiplied  combinations.  As  the  invasions  of  hu- 
man selfishness  are  driven  back  before  the  progress 
of  Christian  enlightenment,  the  Divine  plan  of  in- 
finite wisdom  and  goodness  will  be  seen  more  visi- 
bly revealed  in  history,  and  more  obviously  ex- 
pressed in  society. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER   VI. 

SPECIAL  EXAMINATION  CONTINUED — SIN. 

THE  considerations  presented  in  the  foregoing 
chapters  serve,  we  apprehend,  somewhat  to  obviate 
special  difficulties  regarding  the  wisdom  and  good- 
ness of  God.  The  various  forms  of  evil  which  meet 
us  as  apparently  formidable  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  the  theistic  inference,  are  found,  on  examination, 
to  be  at  least  by  no  means  so  formidable  as  at  first 
they  appear.  At  the  very  worst,  they  do  not  ex- 
hibit themselves  as  unmixed  evils".  They  bear, 
every  one  of  them,  some  compensatory  significance 
of  an  important  kind.  On. the  general  platform 
of  animal  life,  and  in  reference  to  the  most  com- 
prehensive phenomena  of  evil  which  there  occur, 
this  compensatory  character  is  so  prominent,  and 
enters  so  directly  into  the  intended  constitution  of 
things,  that  it  seems  greatly  to  remove  the  element 
of  difficulty  which  superficially  is  felt  to  exist. 
Pain,  while  it  shows  itself  to  be  contingently  re- 
lated to  pleasure  in  the  very  nature  of  the  sensitive 


380  T  H  E  I  S  31 . 

organism — to  be  a  liability  springing  out  of  the 
very  fact  of  the  good — appears  reduced  to  its  mini- 
mum throughout  the  lower  brute  creation;  while 
organic  extinction  is  seen  to  be  a  mere  transition  to 
higher  and  more  abundant  modes  of  life,  in  the 
wide  and  ever-expanding  diversity  of  which  the 
wi'sdom  and  goodness  of  the  Deity  are  ever  more 
truly  and  conspicuously  displayed. 

The  same  compensatory  character,  whereby  a 
higher  good  is  still  developed  from  the  partial  evil, 
is  found  to  mark  the  difficulties  which  occur  in  the 
sphere  of  human  life,  although  manifestly  it  is  no 
longer,  in  this  sphere,  so  adequate  for  explanation. 
Here,  while  suffering  is  no  less  clearly  seen  to  serve 
purposes  of  good,  there  is  yet  very  clearly  left  a 
residuum  of  difficulty  unexplained.  The  benefi- 
cient  use  of  sorrow  is  indeed  apparent,  and  thor- 
oughly satisfactory  as  to  its  existence,  proceeding 
on  the  fact  that  discipline  is  needed  to  purify  and 
exalt  human  life ;  but  the  question  at  once  presses 
itself,  Why  this  disciplinary  necessity  ?  what  ex- 
planation does  it  admit  of  ? 

"We  readily  admit,  therefore,  that  while,  by  the 
light  of  enlarged  and  impartial  inquiry,  we  are 
enabled  to  see  good  every  where  in  the  evil,  and 
so  far  to  obviate  the  difficulties  which  arise  from 
the  latter  regarding  the  Divine  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, we  do  not,  by  such  considerations,  remove 
the  difficulties.  The  darkness  clears  away  a  little 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      381 

as  we  gaze  steadily  into  it,  and  make  ourselves 
familiar  with  it,  but  it  is  still  there.  The  light  has 
penetrated,  but  not  dispersed  it.  It  is  somewhat 
broken  up  and  driven  buck,  but  it  only  concen- 
trates itself  more  deeply — in  an  aspect  of  more 
intense  enigma — on  the  further  point  to  which  it 
has  retreated. 

Following  this  plan,  however,  of  carrying  up 
the  different  forms  of  evil  which  meet  us  in  human 
life  to  their  true  source,  we  are  enabled  to  see 
clearly  the  final  amount  of  difficulty  with  which 
the  theistic  argument  has  to  deal.  If  we  fail  to 
give  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  lower  evils,  it 
is  only  because  they  imply  a  further  element  of 
moral  evil  which  arrests  us.  Bringing  fully  into 
view  this  difficulty,  and  holding  it  in  all  its  inex- 
plicable magnitude  before  us,  it  serves,  in  its  very 
intensity,  to  cast  a  full  meaning  on  the  dependent 
perplexities.  In  this  comprehending  evil  of  sin, 
all  the  lower  phenomena  of  evil  in  human  life  find 
their  satisfactory  explanation. 

This  higher  view  of  the  subject  is  one  from 
which  our  older  theistic  literature  has,  for  the  most 
part,  shrunk.  It  has  aimed  to  bring  out  the  com- 
pensatory significance  of  all  suffering,  and  to  show 
how  largely  good  is  every  where  subserved  by 
evil ;  but  the  explanatory  meaning  which  suffering 
every  where  assumes  in  the  view  of  sin,  has  not 
been  clearly  apprehended  by  it  Sin  has  appa- 


382  THEISM. 

rentlj  been  regarded  as  something  beyond  the 
sphere  of  its  observation :  and,  holding  this  fact  out 
of  sight,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  an  air  of 
unsatisfactoriness  should*  attach  to  its  best  endeav- 
ors* to  resolve  those  phenomena  of  suffering  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking. 

On  the  other  hand,  by  bringing  into  view  the 
fact  of  sin,  if  the  problem  in  the  end  be  only 
deepened,  it  is  yet  simplified.  The  mind  is  left  to 
rest  on  a  single  point  of  darkness,  whose  appre- 
hension leaves  all  the  different  phenomena  of  human 
suffering  at  least  fully  intelligible.  For  when  we 
consider  the  fact  of  sin,  it  no  longer  remains  won- 
derful that  there  should  be  suffering.  The  true 
marvel  would  have  been,  if,  with  the  presence  of 
sin,  there  had  not  been  suffering.  For  a  moral  in- 
stinct of  the  most  direct  and  irresistible  character 
assures  us  that  the  latter  is  every  where  the  in- 
evitable consequence  of  the  former — that  the  two 
are  bound  together,  and  essentially  coexistent,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case.  Because  man  is  a  sinner, 
he  is  a  sufferer.  It  is  sin  that  smites  him  with  pain, 
and  wounds  him  with  sorrow.  It  is  sin  which 
darkens  life  for  him,  and  embitters  death.  When 
we  seize,  therefore,  this  fact,  of  sin,  the  mystery 
of  suffering  disappears  within  it. 

Especially  is  this  the  case  when  we  apprehend 

*  See   PALEY'S  Nat.  Theol.,  chap.  xxvi.      BROWN'S  Lectures, 
leet.  94. 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      388 

the  fact  of  sin  in  clear  connection  with  that  com- 
plete doctrine  of  Theism  as  to  the  Divine  good- 
ness which  formerly  opened  up  to  us  in  the  course 
of  our  argument.  In  the  law  of  conscience  we 
found  that  good  interprets  itself  as  the  right.  The 
moral  good  which  commands  us  in  conscience  is 
righteousness.  The  one  idea  only  sustains  itself  in 
the  other,  and  finds  its  complement  in  it.  The  attri- 
bute of  Divine  goodness  becomes,  accordingly,  in  re- 
lation to  moral  life,  also  Divine  righteousness.  The 
two  conceptions  are  essentially  inseparable.  If  we 
regard  sin,  then,  in  this  higher  theistic  light,  we 
will  at  once  see  that  suffering  is  its  necessary  mark 
of  punishment.  Asserting  itself  in  opposition  to 
the  law  of  conscience,  it  thereby  directly  opposes 
itself  to  the  righteous  will  of  Grod,  of  which  that 
law  is  the  expression,  and  so  provokes  His  punish- 
ment. Existing  only  as  a  rebellious  infraction  of 
Divine  will,  it  necessarily  calls  forth  the  Divine 
wrath.  In  its  very  character,  wherever  it  occurs 
in  the  universe  of  God,  sin  accordingly  is,  and 
must  be,  marked  by  His  displeasure.  It  must 
bear  the  brand  of  suffering.  It  must  have  its  doom 
written  on  it.  And  in  this  point  of  view,  so  far  is 
suffering  from  constituting  a  valid  objection  to  the 
Divine  goodness,  that  it  is  truly  a  manifestation  of 
that  goodness.  Kightly  viewed,  the  Divine  pun- 
ishment or  sin  is  merely  another  side  of  the  Divine 
goodness  For  inasmuch  as  goodness  only  com- 


384  THEISM. 

pletes  itself  in  righteousness,  were  sin  or  un- 
righteousness not  visited  with  punitive  suffering, 
the  Divine  goodness  could  not  be  the  reality  which 
conscience  demands.  It  might  remain  a  vague 
and  beautiful  dream  of  the  imagination ;  but  a 
goodness  which  in  any  respect  came  short  of 
righteousness  would,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
prove  a  vanishing  shadow — a  mere  fiction,  on  which 
the  heart  could  never  rest.  Let  the  one  idea  be 
lost  sight  of,  and  the  other  will  altogether  fail  to 
legitimatize  itself,  or  keep  its  ground.  A  good- 
ness which  does  not  rest  on  justice,  and  em- 
brace it,  would,  in  the  highest  meaning  of  the 
attribute,  be  no  goodness — our  own  moral  con- 
science being  judge — and  would  leave,  therefore, 
no  real  foundation  for  that  happiness  in  whose 
behalf  it  is  sometimes  emptied  of  this  essential 
element.  In  all  this  view,  therefore,  the  Divine 
goodness  is  seen  not  only  to  be  consistent  with,  but 
to  be  expressly  called  forth  in  human  suffering  as 
the  punishment  of  sin. 

But  when  we  contemplate  sin,  in  its  own  essen- 
tial character,  as  most  truly  misery,  this  becomes 
still  further  evident.  Any  other  conception  we 
can  form  of  misery  is  poor  and  trifling  in  compari- 
son with  that  which  is  summed  up  in  the  fact  of 
sin  itself.  The  temporary  evil  of  suffering  is, 
therefore,  most  truly  good,  when  viewed  as  the 
chastening  of  sin,  to  deliver  us  from  its  power. 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      385 

Its  bitterness  is  a  direct  agency  of  Divine  benefi- 
cence, to  save  us  from  a  darker  and  more  hopeless 
bitterness.  Had  sin  not  thus  borne  the  reproba- 
tion of  suffering,  and  man's  sinful  progress  ex- 
perienced no  check  from  it,  the  Divine  goodness 
would  undoubtedly  have  been  left  in  far  greater 
obscurity  than  it  is. 

But  what  of  sin  itself?  What  theistic  explana- 
tion does  it  admit  of?  Has  not  our  whole  previous 
train  of  reasoning  been  merely  a  fencing  with  the 
outer  or  accessory  difficulties  of  the  subject,  while 
the  great  difficulty  lies  here  ?  We  are  certainly 
far  from  concealing  that  in  the  comprehensive  fact 
of  sin  is  contained  the  chief  mystery  with  which 
we  have  to  deal.  We  have,  on  the  contrary,  all 
along  implied  this.  It  has  been  our  aim  simply  to 
show,  in  reference  to  human  life,  how  all  the  diffi- 
culties attending  the  theistic  inference  run  up  into 
this  point,  and  here  find  their  ultimate  force.  And 
if,  at  length,  in  approaching  this  point,  we  find  that 
the  light  of  explanation  fails  us,  or;  in  other  words, 
find  that  we  can  not  at  all  resolve  sin  in  our  process 
of  theistic  induction,  it  may  at  the  same  time  ap- 
pear that  this  arises  from  its  very  nature,  which  is 
such  as  compels  us  to  cast  it  out  of  the  theistic 
argument,  and  per  se  liberates  that  argument  from 
its  injurious  burden,  mysterious  and  irresolvable  as 
it  may  forever  remain.  It  may  be  seen  that,  while 
this  mystery  defies  all  solution,  it  separates  itself 


386  THEISM. 

by  its  character  from  all  direct  relation  to  the 
Divine  agency.  Profound  as  is  the  difficulty  it  in- 
volves, it  is  a  difficulty,  when  rightly  understood, 
not  immediately  regarding  the  Divine  character 
(about  which  its  own  testimony  leaves  no  doubt), 
but  regarding  its  human  possibility. 

Sin,  as  we  have  already  assumed,  is  in  its  essen- 
tial conception  the  revolt  of  the  human  self  against 
the  Divine.  Whereas  the  good  consists  for  us  in 
the  harmony  of  the  Divine  and  the  human  will, 
the  evil  consists  essentially  in  the  insurrection  of 
the  latter  against  the  former.  The  soul  passes  out 
of  the  sphere  of  Divine  conformity,  and  asserts 
itself  in  an  attitude  of  opposition  to  God  and  to 
goodness.  This  is  the  most  radical  principle  of 
moral  evil.  It  is  this  element  of  rebellious  self-will 
against  the  Divine  law  that  we  specially  mean  by 
sin.  It  expresses  itself  in  many  forms,  and  assumes 
many  characters  ;  but  in  this  element  of  rebellious 
self-will  they  all  take  their  rise.  This  is  the  per- 
verted essence  which  pervades  all. 

Such  being  the  true  character  of  sin,  it  must  be 
obvious  in  its  very  definition,  that  we  can  not 
bring  it  into  inductive  relation  with  the  course  of 
our  evidence ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  we  can  not 
find  any  argumentative  solution  of  it.  For  how 
can  we  intelligibly  relate  that  to  God,  whose  very 
essence  consists  in  opposition  to  Him  ?  How  can 
we  explain  that  which  in  itself,  in  its  very  concep- 


: 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      387 

tion,  presents  the  uttermost  contradiction?  In 
order  that  any  thing  may  be  capable  of  explana- 
tion, it  must  exhibit  some  ground  of  reason ;  but 
here  all  is  unreason.  That  any  creature  should 
revolt  against  its  Creator  can  only  present  itself  as 
the  most  awful  and  unfathomable  folly.  Sin, 
therefore,  baffles  all  explanation.  Every  attempt 
that  has  been  made  to  throw  any  light  upon  it,  or 
to  resolve  it  inductively,  has  ended,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  in  denying  it.*  All  that  we 
can  say  or  know  is,  that  the  possibility  of  sin  lies 
in  the  fact  of  human  freedom.  Man  being  made 
free  to  choose  good  or  evil,  the  choice  of  the  latter 
was  possible — but  further  all  is  darkness ;  and  if 

e  insist  for  a  moment  in  carrying  our  logical  ex- 
planations up  into  this  region,  we  only  plunge  into 
deeper  and  more  hopeless  darkness. 

But  in  this  very  confession  of  the  utter  unintelli- 
gibility  of  sin,  is  not  our  argument  relieved  from 
its  difficulty  ?  We  can  not  give  any  theistrc  ex- 
planation of  it.  But  why  ?  Because,  in  its  very 
essence,  it  is  anti-theistic.  It  is  in  God's  creation, 
but  it  is  there  as  a  blot  upon  it — in  direct  violation 
of  the  Divine  order  which  otherwise  prevails.  In 
its  nature  it  wholly  separates  itself  from  God,  and 
is,  therefore,  whatever  we  may  make  of  it,  not  en- 
titled to  reflect  injuriously  on  the  Divine  character. 

*  See  note  at  the  end  of  the  chapter,  where  the  attempts  of 
this  kind  most  deserving  attention  are  briefly  reviewed. 


388  THEISM. 

A  true  perception  of  sin  leaves  it,  indeed,  an  in- 
soluble difficulty,  but  is  so  far  from  allowing  its 
darkness  to  rest  on  the  Divine  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, that  it  is  only  against  the  truth  of  these 
attributes  that  its  heinousness  comes  fully  into 
view.  It  is  only  its  opposition  to  Divine  wisdom 
and  love  that  makes  sin  what  it  is.  And  to  this 
itself  bears  witness  in  its  own  innermost  darkness. 
In  the  very  act  of  stamping  its  atheistic  impress 
upon  the  soul,  it  belies  its  own  act;  and  in  its 
deepest  abandonment  proclaims  the  reality  of  the 
Divine  goodness  with  which  it  strives.  The  re- 
bellious self-will  which  opposes  itself  to  Grod,  yet 
trembles  before  Him.  It  trembles  because  of  its 
own  unquenchable  witness  to  the  truth  of  those 
perfections  which  it  practically  denies.  So  long  as 
conscience  is  not  utterly  extinguished,  there  arises 
from  the  very  heart  of  depravity  this  irrepressible 
testimony.  This  it  is,  in  fact,  which — asserting  it- 
self against  the  most  persistent  godlessness — gives 
to  that  godlessness  all  its  direst  unrest  and  misery. 
The  sense  of  guilt,  in  its  worst  agony,  is  nothing 
save  the  consciousness  of  hostility  to  Divine  wisdom 
and  goodness. 


NOTE. 

Various  theories  have  professed  to  expound  what  is  called  the 
origin  of  evil.  The  most  comprehensive  and  impartial  account 
of  these  theories  that  we  know  of  is  to  l)e  found  in  the  second 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      389 

book  of  Dr.  Julius  Muller's  treatise  on  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  sin.  On  a  careful  examination,  one  and  all  of  them  will  be 
found  to  explain  sin  by  virtually  denying  it  in  its  true  charac- 
ter. Dr.  Muller  has  reckoned  them  as  four,  under  the  several 
names  of  the  theories  of  Dualism,  of  Contrast,  of  Sense,  and  of 
Metaphysical  Imperfection.  The  only'two  of  them  that  can  be 
said  to  possess  any  special  interest,  or  to  deserve  any  special 
notice,  are  those  of  Contrast  and  of  Metaphysical  Imperfection. 
The  former  derives  certain  pretensions  from  its  analogy  to  that 
compensatory  mode  of  argument  which  we  have  pursued  in 
previous  chapters.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing  else  than  this  argu- 
ment reduced  to  the  palpable  contradictoriness  that  lies  in  it 
when  pushed  to  extremity.  The  latter  claims  attention  from 
the  influential  names  that  have  promulgated  it,  and  the  manner 
in  which  it  has  been  associated  with  Christian  literature.  Both, 
besides,  have  this  special  claim  upon  our  notice,  that  while 
neither  of  them  can  be  said  any  longer  to  possess  vitality  as 
speculative  theories,  they  yet  truly  live  and  find  utterance  in 
many  of  our  current  modes  of  literary  and  theological  culture. 

In  this  view  we  present  here  a  summary  of  Dr.  Muller's  ex- 
position of  them,  which  has  in  some  part  elsewhere  appeared, 
but  which,  in  relation  to  the  subject  of  the  foregoing  (Jhapter, 
may  be  interesting  to  a  certain  class  of  readers.  It  will  cer- 
tainly serve  to  set  forth  more  clearly  the  conclusion  of  that 
chapter  as  to  the  absolute  unintelligibility  of  the  evil,  and  the 
consequent  futility  of  all  attempts  to  explain  it. 

The  theory  of  Contrast  may  be  thus  stated :  Evil,  like  dark- 
ness or  cold,  is  an  indispensable  element  of  alternation  in  hu- 
man life.  All  individual  reality  is  only  the  product  of  opposite 
forces  working  together.  Pure  light  were  in  itself  perfectly 
colorless — identical  in  fact  with  darkness :  it  is  only  the  blend- 
ing of  the  various  shades  of  both  which  gives  us  actual  light. 
The  plant,  were  it  a  single  power,  would  not  grow:  it  is  only 
the  co-operation  of  opposite  powers  which  promotes  its  devel- 
opment. So  in  man,  individuality — character — is  only  the  pro- 
duct of  the  opposing  ethical  moments  of  good  and  evil.  Perfect 
purity,  without  flaw,  without  struggle,  would  be  a  mere  empty 
and  useless  abstraction.  All  life  and  energy  only  arise  from  the 
mutual  conflict  of  the  positive  and  negative.  In  nature  we 
have  attraction  and  repulsion — positive  and  negative  elec- 
tricity; in  ordinary  life,  pain  and  pleasure,  rest  and  activity 


390  THEISM. 

health  and  sickness.  Take  away  any  of  these  relative  moments, 
the  other  would  disappear  with  it.  Take  away  repulsion,  there 
would  be  no  more  attraction.  Let  pain  disappear,  so  would 
pleasure.  Rest  is  no  more  rest  if  it  does  not  spring  from  ac- 
tivity; and  the  joy  of  health  is  only  known  through  sickness. 
Why  should  it  be  different  in  the  sphere  of  morals  ?  Here,  too, 
there  must  be  a  polarity.  Good  can  only  be  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  evil.  It  is  only  from  their  interaction  that  the  moral 
life  derives  any  character  and  energy.  How  utterly  devoid  of 
interest — how  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable — were  our  life,  were 
sin  entirely  to  disappear !  Where  would  be  all  that  now  in 
history  or  romance  gives  a  charm  to  it  ?  Where  would  be  the 
passions  that  now  lend  to  poetry  all  its  power,  and  to  the  arts 
all  their  witchery  ? 

The  relation  of  this  to  our  previous  compensatory  mode  of 
argument  will  be  apparent.  Whereas,  however,  that  mode  of 
argument  is  simply  made  use  of  by  us  to  show  the  good  which 
still  attends  the  evil,  and  seems  even  to  rise  out  of  it — reduced, 
as  it  is  here,  to  a  logical  explanation  of  moral  evil,  it  secures 
its  object  only  by  destroying  the  fact  to  be  explained.  So  far 
as  we  have  urged  the  argument,  it  amounts  to  this,  that  the  evil  is 
every  where  contingently  related  to  the  good,  and  appears  in 
its  mere  capacity  to  be  so  connected  with  it,  that  we  do  not 
know  that  we  could  have  had  the  one,  and  the  other  been  abso- 
lutely excluded.  But  the  present  theory  not  only  finds  good  in 
the  evil,  but  it  makes  moral  evil  an  absolute  condition  of  moral 
goodness.  In  this  view  it  is  not,  and  can  not  be  any  longer 
evil.  It  enters  no  longer  as  a  spring  of  disorder,  but  as  a  neces- 
sary integral  into  the  development  of  human  life.  In  fact,  the 
good  in  contrast  to  the  evil  is  no  longer  good,  but  rather  evil, 
and  the  evil  good  ;  for  it  is  only  the  quickening  impulse  of  the 
former  gives  the  latter  vitality  and  strength.  Without  this 
the  good  were  no  reality,  but  a  mere  slumbering  torpid  poten- 
tiality. It  lies  in  the  last  logical  results  of  this  theory,  there- 
fore, to  enthrone  the  evil  as  the  first  principle.  It  does  not  de- 
pend upon  the  good,  but  the  good,  so  far  as  it  is  possessed  of 
any  living  power,  depends  upon  it ;  or,  at  any  rate,  the  concrete 
reality  in  which  they  unite  is  something  in  which  the  prop- 
erly distinctive  characters  of  the  two  conceptions  disappear. 

But  this  theory  moreover  rests  on  a  special  misstatement  of 
the  fact  in  question.  It  is  by  no  means  true  that" the  good,  aa 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      891 

euch,  needs  the  reaction  of  the  evil  to  attain  energy  and  con- 
sistency. No  doubt  there  are,  as  we  have  seen,  forms  of  good 
which  we  can  only  imagine  in  contrast  to  evil — nay,  there 
would  seem  to  be,  as  we  formerly  expressed  it,  a  richer  power 
of  good  in  the  end  from  the  very  presence  of  the  evil — but  this 
is  something  wholly  different  from  recognizing,  according  to 
the  present  theory,  the  good  to  be  absolutely  dependent  upon 
the  evil,  and  only  to  be  possessed  of  activity  from  co-operation 
with  it.  Life  and  activity  are,  on  the  contrary,  essential  ele- 
ments of  the  good  in  itself.  As  a  creaturely  product,  it  is  cer- 
tainly dependent  for  its  development  on  the  coaction  of  relative 
forces,  both  bodily  and  mental ;  but  its  relation  to  the  evil  is 
still  only,  even  when  it  derives  strength  from  the  relation,  one 
of  conflict.  It  is  the  very  warfare  with  the  evil,  and  repulsion 
of  it,  that  imparts  strength  and  higher  glory  to  the  good.  Ev- 
ery corrupting  association  of  the  evil  with  the  good  is,  there- 
fore, still  so  far  evil,  and  not  good. 

The  second  theory  to  which  we  have  referred  is  that  which 
traces  moral  evil  to  the  Metaphysical  Imperfection  of  human 
nature.  This  is  especially  known  as  the  theory  of  Leibnitz  in 
his  Theodicee,  although  it  really  dates  from  Augustine,  and  had 
even,  in  our  own  literature,  received  an  elaborate  exposition 
some  years  before  the  appearance  of  the  Theodicoe,  in  the  well- 
known  work  of  Bishop  King.  According  to  this  theory,  evil 
is  considered  to  be  a  mere  privation  ;  to  be  in  morals,  in  short, 
what  cold  and  darkness  are  in  physics — a  pure  negation.  It  is 
only  the  perfect  or  absolute  that  is  positive :  all  imperfection 
proceeding  from  limitation  is  of  a  privative  or  negative  char- 
acter. But  God  alone  is  perfect.  The  creature  in  his  very 
nature  is  limited.  This  limitation  shows  itself  in  man,  in  the 
presence  of  error  beside  truth  in  his  understanding — of  pain 
beside  pleasure  in  his  senses.  Is  it  wonderful,  then,  that  in  his 
will  this  limitation  should  also  manifest  itself  in  the  presence 
of  evil  beside  the  good  ?  According  to  this  view,  evil  takes  its 
rise,  not  in  an  efficient  cause  (causa  efficient),  but  only  in  a  causa 
deficiens.  God  gives  the  creature  his  qualities  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  real  and  positive ;  the  deficiency  does  not  spring  from 
His  will,  but  from  the  nature  of  the  thing.  God  is  willing  to 
bestow  every  perfection  in  the  fullest  possible  degree,  but  the 
receptivity  of  the  creature  in  its  very  conception  is  limited. 
This  limited  receptivity  has  its  ultimate  ground  in  the  Divine 


892  THEISM. 

understanding,  the  region  of  eternal  truth — the  forms  or  ideas 
of  the  possible — the  sole  thing  which  God  has  not  made,  as  lie 
is  not  the  author  of  His  own  understanding.  In  this  way 
Leibnitz  conceives  that  he  obviates  the  reference  of  the  evil 
to  God.  Every  positive  faculty  of  man  is  to  be  traced  back  to 
God;  but  the  evil,  as  a  mere  privation,  can  not  be  so  traced. 
"What  is  good  cometh  from  the  strength  of  God — what  is  evil, 
from  the  torpor  of  the  creature.* 

It  has  been  shown  by  Dr.  Mtiller  that  this  theory  admits  in 
some  degree  of  two  interpretations.  It  may  be  understood  as 
either  deriving  sin  necessarily  out  of  the  original  imperfection 
of  the  creature,  or  as  only  placing  the  possibility  of  sin  in  this 
imperfection.  While  some  of  Leibnitz's  expressions  would  seem 
to  favor  the  latter  interpretation,  there  can  yet  be  little  doubt, 
we  think,  that  it  was  in  the  former  sense  he  himself  meant  it 
to  be  understood,  as  in  this  sense  alone  can  it  be  said  to  have 
any  title  to  be  considered  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  evil.  It 
was  his  whole  object  "  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,"  and 
the  secret  of  this  justification  he  undoubtedly  believed  himself 
to  have  found  in  the  conception  of  evil  as  necessarily  inherent  in 
the  limitations  of  the  creature.  Evil  is  a  direct  and  inevitable 
consequence  of  these  limitations — une  suite  des  limitations  pre- 
cedentps,  qui  sent  origin  air erncnt  dans  sa  creature — so  that  in  cre- 
ating the  world  at  all,  God  (so  to  speak)  could  not  help  the 
admixture  of  evil  in  it ;  inasmuch  as  it  could  not  be  absolutely 
perfect,  it  could  not  be  free  from  evil.  But  the  evil  is  the 
least  that  could  have  been.  The  world  is  the  "  best  of  all  pos- 
sible worlds!" 

This  theory  of  metaphysical  imperfection  has  been  among 
theologians  the  most  favorite  mode  of  explaining  the  origin  of 
evil.  It  took  its  rise  in  the  case  of  Augustine,  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  from  the  necessity  felt  by  him  of  opposing  to  the  Dualis- 
tic  conception  of  the  Manicheans  some  solution  of  the  great 
problem  in  consistency  witli  the  Divine  unity  and  perfections. 
And  it  has  maintained  its  place  in  theology,  as  seeming  to  fur- 
nish, upon  the  whole,  the  solution  of  this  problem  most  recon- 
cilable with  these  perfections.  Among  our  latest  writers  on 
Natural  Theology,  Dr.  Chalmers  expounds  it  with  zest,  and  puts 
it  forward  as  hypothetically  valuable  in  meeting  the  cavils  of 
skepticism,  although  manifesting  considei able  reluctance  to  ac- 
*  Theod'icee,  part  i.  §  20-33. 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      393" 

cept  it  as  satisfactory.  There  are  perhaps  few  more  signal  ex- 
amples of  the  perverting  influence  of  theoretic  arbitrariness  on. 
theological  literature  than  that  which  is  presented  by  this  theory. 

A  little  examination  of  it  will  serve  to  show  this.  And  first 
of  all,  the  conception  which  it  presents  of  sin  is  in  direct  con- 
tradiction to  the  moral  consciousness.  Sin  is  not  the  ens  pri- 
vatum  which  this  theory  holds  it  to  be ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
of  an  essentially  positive  character.  It  bears  no  analogy  to  any 
of  the  other  limitations  or  imperfections  which  attach  to  our 
nature  ;  these  are  merely  the  appropriate  accidents  or  condi- 
tions of  our  finite  being.  But  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
very  essence  of  sin  that  it  reveals  itself  from  the  first  as  an  ele- 
ment of  disorder  and  opposition  within  us.  If  regarded  as  in- 
herent in  the  necessary  imperfection  of  our  being,  we  are  then 
reduced  to  the  strange  conclusion,  that  out  of  the  very  limita- 
tions which  go  to  constitute  the  conception  of  the  creature  there 
arises  a  limitation  which  contradicts  this  conception.  Bu\ 
further,  in  making  sin,  as  this  theory  does,  the  necessary  result 
of  the  imperfections  of  our  nature,  it  thereby,  no  less  than  all 
other  theories,  really  destroys  it.  For  sin  being  necessary,  it 
is  no  longer  morally  blamable.  If  it  spring  out  of  the  essential 
limitations  of  our  being,  it  is  no  longer  a  fault,  but  only  a  mis- 
fortune. In  this  point  of  view,  too,  this  theory  wholly  fails  in 
its  attempts  to  turn  aside  the  reference  of  sin  to  God.  Grant- 
ing that  this  creaturely  limitation  is  the  proximate  cause,  yet 
this  creaturely  limitation  is  only  such  as  the  appointment  of 
God.  There  is  only  a  causa  deficiens  in  so  far  as  called  into  ex- 
istence by  the  causa  efficiens.  Leibnitz's  distinction  of  under- 
standing and  will  in  the  Deity  does  not  really  avail  to  obviate 
this  conclusion,  unless  the  distinction  is  to  be  seized  in  an  abso- 
lutely dualistic  sense. 

And  if  necessary  in  its  origin,  sin,  according  to  this  theory, 
must  be  no  less  eternal  in  its  duration ;  inasmuch  as  the  crea- 
ture can  never  be  absolutely  perfect,  sin  can  never  wholly  dis- 
appear. It  can  still  only  be  a  vanishing  minimum,  as  the  crea- 
ture approximates  to  the  perfection  of  the  Creator ;  and  this  is 
an  idea  which  would  seem  even  to  have  entered  into  the  mind 
of  Leibnitz,  in  his  famous  representation  of  the  human  spirit  as 
an  asymptote  of  the  Divine.  Could  we  conceive  the  still  van- 
ishing limit  entirely  away,  man  would  be  no  longer  man,  but 
God.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  this  theory,  pushed  to  its  fair  logi- 
17* 


394  THEISM. 

cal  results,  only  escapes  Pantheism  by  making  sin  eternal.  Man 
only  ceases  to  be  a  sinner  by  becoming  God.  Most  singular  and 
instructive  coincidence  with  the  latest  outrages  of  German  spec- 
ulation, and  the  favorite  representations  of  the  most  seductive 
school  of  infidel  literature,  both  in  our  own  country  and  Ameri- 
ca !  So  striking  is  this  coincidence,  that  in  many  of  the  ex- 
pressions of  Emerson,  Leibnitz  and  even  sometimes  Augustine 
might  be  supposed  to  speak.  From  quite  opposite  impulses, 
but  under  the  same  rage  for  theorizing,  the  modern  transcen- 
dentalist  has  reproduced  their  idea  of  the  evil  being  simply  a 
deficiency  of  the  good ;  only  he  has  apprehended,  which  they 
did  not,  this  idea  in  its  strict  logical  consequence — as  cutting  up 
by  the  root  the  consciousness  of  guilt,  and,  in  making  sin  a  ne- 
cessity, annihilating  it  as  a  moral  fact. 

It  is  this  strangely  instructive  result  which  enables  us  to  see 
in  the  clearest  light  the  fundamental  vice  of  Leibnitz's  theory, 
and,  in  fact,  of  all  the  theories  on  our  subject.  This  vice  con- 
sists in  the  application  of  purely  logical  or  inductive  concep- 
tions to  moral  truth,  while  this  truth  in  its  very  nature  trans- 
cends the  grasp  of  logic.  It  makes  itself  good  in  the  inner 
spiritual  consciousness,  but  it  can  not  be  inductively  seized  and 
accounted  for.  The  attempt  so  to  seize  it  necessarily  terminates 
in  misapprehending  it.  It  is  obvious,  for  example,  that  it  is 
such  a  perverting  misapprehension  which  underlies  the  whole 
scope  of  the  present  theory.  For  if  it  does  not  confound  meta- 
physical with  moral  defect,  it  yet  makes  one  an  inevitable  con 
sequence  of  the  other.  A  relation  is  thus  implied  which  is 
wholly  inapplicable,  between  mere  perfection  of  being  and  per- 
fection of  moral  life.  In  the  former  respect,  God  alone  is  or 
can  be  perfect;  in  the  latter  there  may  be,  so  far  as  we  know,, 
any  variety  of  relative  perfection.  Sinlessness  has  no  connec- 
tion with  the  mere  mass  of  being,  but  exists  entirely  in  the  har- 
monious proportion  between  being  and  the  moral  laws  under 
which  it  exists.  And  in  like  manner,  sin  has,  and  can  have,  no 
connection  with  mere  metaphysical  limitation  or  defect  of  being, 
but  exists  entirely  in  the  discordance  between  it  and  its  proper 
moral  conditions.  The  two  conceptions  of  good  as  mere  being, 
and  good  as  moral  harmony,  are  totally  and  essentially  distinct, 
and  nothing  but  the  most  hopeless  and  irretrievable  error  can 
arise  from  their  confusion.  In  the  one  case  it  is  substance  with 
"•\xich  we  deal — more  or  less;  in  the  other  it  is  will — right  or 


SPECIAL    EXAMINATION  —  SIN.      395 

•wrong.  N"o  circle  of  thought  can  ever  unite  these  conceptions, 
which  are  absolutely  distinguished.  We  do  not  say,  indeed, 
that  the  metaphysical  definitions  of  being  and  non-being,  affirm- 
ative and  negative,  possession  and  want,  have  no  relation  to 
the  investigation  of  sin;  but  only  that  they  are  totally  misap- 
plied when  made  to  express  its  real  and  essential  principle. 
And  so  long  as  philosophy  or  theology  remains  fast  bound  in 
such  logical  abstractions,  neither  can  have  any  true  apprehen- 
sion of  its  character,  and  in  attempting  to  define  it  can  only 
mistake  it.  "We  must  rise  into  a  quite  different  region,  and 
bring  into  view  that  mysterious  personality,  which  at  once  so 
directly  relates  man  to  the  Fountain  of  all  life,  and  yet  contains 
within  it  the  capacity  of  furthest  alienation  from  Him,  before 
we  can  reach  any  genuine  perceptions  of  sin,  and  apprehend 
its  essential  contents.  And  when  we  have  done  this,  we  will 
not  fail  to  apprehend,  at  the  same  time,  how  futile  must  be  all 
attempts  to  explain  the  origin  of  sin,  from  the  very  character  of 
the  subject  in  which  it  takes  its  rise.  All  that  we  can  know  is, 
that  the  possibility  of  sin  lies  in  the  fact  of  personality ;  in  other 
words,  in  the  fact  of  human  freedom.  And  as  this  fact  ia  wholly 
inexplicable,  so  is  equally  the  sin  which  has  sprung  from  it. 
As  Coleridge  has  said,  with  that  profound  moral  insight  which 
so  often  marks  his  scattered  observations,  and  renders  them  so 
valuable  to  the  Christian  student — "It  is  a  mystery,  that  is  a 
fact,  which  we  see  but  can  not  explain ;  and  the  doctrine  (he 
means  of  original  sin),  a  truth  which  we  apprehend,  but  can 
neither  comprehea  d  nor  communicate.  And  such,  by  the  quali- 
ty of  the  subject  (i  amely,  a  responsible  will),  it  must  be,  if  it  be 
a  truth  at  all"* 

Aids  to  Reflection,  vol.  1.  p.  730. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  VII. 

CONSIDERATIONS,  ETC. — DERIVED   FROM  "  WRIT  TEN 


IN  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  carried  out 
our  treatment  of  difficulties  regarding  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  Grod  in  so  far  as  we  are  enabled 
to  do  by  the  light  of  nature.  These  difficulties, 
we  have  seen,  in  their  most  formidable  aspect, 
concentrate  in  moral  evil ;  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  refuses  to  be  related  inductively  to  the  great 
Source  of  being,  but  asserts  itself  as  the  mysteri- 
ous product  of  the  human  free  will.  In  its  very 
nature,  sin  utterly  separates  itself  from  God,  while 
yet  bearing  in  its  dark  rebellion  an  unequivocal 
testimony  to  the  Divine  existence  and  character. 
Whatever  may  be  its  mystery  and  difficulty,  there- 
fore, it  seems  undoubted  that  the  fact  of  moral  evil 
is  not  entitled  to  affect  injuriously  the  theistic 
inference. 

This  conclusion  appears  to  us  so  far  satisfactory. 
As  to  the  final  difficult v  of  the  origin  of  evil,  it 


CONSIDERATIONS  FROM   REVELATION.   397 

has  been  our  express  aim  to  show  that  it  admits  in 
its  nature  of  no  solution.  It  presents  an  impenetrable 
mystery ;  only  the  hopeless  darkness  which  here  at 
length  meets  us,  can  not  be  allowed  to  rest  legiti- 
mately on  the  Divine  character.  According  even 
to  the  testimony  of  sin  itself,  that  character  stands 
out  in  clear  brightness  against  it. 

In  case,  however,  that  any  doubt  should  still 
surround  this  conclusion,  we  are  finally  led  by  the 
terms  of  our  subject  into  the  region  of  special 
Divine  revelation.  We  do  not  suppose  that  it  is 
meant  that  we  should  enter  into  any  special  proof 
of  the  Divine  authority  of  this  revelation.  All 
that  seems  to  us  to  be  appropriately  implied  in  the 
terms  of  the  Essay  is,  that  we  should  take  a  glance 
at  this  higher  region  of  revelation  before  we  close. 
Having  sought  in  the  lower  region  of  natural  in- 
ductive inquiry  for  all  the  light  within  our  reach, 
we  are  invited  finally  to  cast  our  gaze  to  that 
brighter  light  which  professes  to  shine  upon  us 
directly  from  God  Himself.  The  very  strength 
and  clearness  of  the  luster  which  the  Christian 
revelation  sheds  around  the  Divine  character,  may 
at  the  same  time  go  far,  apart  from  any  formal 
proof,  to  vindicate  its  Divine  authority. 

Taking  up,  then,  our  argument  at  the  point  at 
which  we  left  it,  we  reached  the  conclusion  that 
sin,  from  its  very  nature,  could  not  only  have  no 
productive  relation  to  God,  but  was  directly  op- 


398  THEISM. 

posed  to  Mm.  At  this  point,  the  Gospel  meets  us 
in  the  most  significant  manner.  It  declares  in  its 
very  conception  God's  hatred  of  sin,  and  opposition 
to  it.  It  affirms  that  it  was  for  the  very  purpose 
of  destroying  sin  that  He  sent  His  Son  Jesus  Christ 
into  the  world.  "We  are  no  longer  left  to  infer 
from  a  process  of  reasoning  regarding  the  divine 
character,  as  revealed  in  the  depths  of  our  own 
conscience,  that  God  is  opposed  to  sin,  but  in  the 
mission  and  death  of  the  Lord  Jesus  He  Himself 
makes  this  specially  known  to  us  with  the  most 
solemn  effect.  All  our  Lord  did  and  suffered  bore 
the  same  meaning  of  Divine  hatred  against  sin. 
All  expressed  with  an  imperishable  force  that  God 
is  u  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil,"  and  can 
not  "  look  on  iniquity." 

Thus  carrying  on  our  argument  from  the  nega- 
tive point  at  which  we  left  it,  we  see  with  what 
decisive  clearness  the  Gospel  interprets  the  indica- 
tions of  nature,  and  shows  that  the  burden  and 
injury  of  sin,  however  inscrutable,  are  directly 
rejected  by  God.  Ascending  slowly  toward  this 
conclusion  from  the  attentive  scrutiny  of  our  moral 
consciousness,  we  are  met  by  a  direct  utterance 
from  God  Himself,  which  places  our  conclusion 
beyond  all  hesitation,  and  enables  us  to  rest  in  it 
with  an  impregnable  security. 

But  this  negative  testimony  bears  us  but  a  little 
way  into  the  full  light  which  the  Gospel  sheds 


CONSIDERATIONS   FROM   REVELATION.    399 

upon  the  Divine  character.  In  this  indirect  manner 
it  serves  to  vindicate  that  character  from  the  appli- 
cation of  the  objection  founded  on  the  existence 
of  moral  evil ;  but  in  what  a  positive  glory  of 
wisdom  and  beneficence  does  it  further  place  it ! 
If  its  utterance-,  on  the  one  hand,  is  that  God  is 
righteous,  and  hateth  sin;  its  utterance,  on  the 
other,  is  that  "  God  is  light,  and  in  Him  is  no  dark- 
ness at  all  ;"*  and,  moreover,  and  emphatically 
that  "  God  is  love."f  "  In  this  was  manifested  the 
love  of  God  toward  us,  because  that  God  sent  His 
only  begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that  we  might 
live  through  Him.  Herein  is  love;  not  that  we 
loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son 
to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.":):  "  For  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  belie veth  in  Him  might  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."§ 

Such  is  the  full  luster  of  meaning  which  the 
revelation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  sheds  upon  the  dim 
hints  of  nature.  If,  after  all  their  study  of  the  lat- 
ter, there  be  minds  that  return  uncertain  whether 
the  Power  that  speaks  to  them  in  its  varied  changes, 
and  is  present  in  its  varied  aspects,  be  a  beneficent 
Power,  here,  as  it  were,  the  heavens  open,  and  a 
voice  is  heard  whose  utterance  is  a  gospel  of  love. 
Whatever  doubts  may  remain  to  the  merely  natural 

*  1  John,  i.  5.  t  Ibid»  iv-  8- 

t  1   John,  iv.  8,  9,  10.  §  John,  iii.  16. 


400  THEISM. 

view — whatever  difficulties  may  impede  the  prompt- 
ings of  the  heart — are  forever  dissipated  by  the 
clear  and  strong  truth  not  only  announced  in 
words,  but  expressed  in  action — not  only  declared 
by  the  mouth  of  an  apostle,  but  exemplified  by  the 
mission  and  death  of  His  own  Son — that  God  is 
love."  "  Scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will  one 
die :  yet  perad venture  for  a  good  man  some  would 
even  dare  to  die.  But  God  commendeth  His  love 
toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ 
died  for  us."* 

Sin,  we  see,  so  far  from  being  entitled  to  darken 
to  us  in  any  degree  the  character  of  God,  is  the 
very  fact  which  serves  to  bring  out,  in  its  greatest 
fullness  and  depth  of  brightness,  the  beneficence  of 
that  character.  It  is  against  this  dark  shadow  that 
its  luster  comes  forth  with  the  most  glorions  clear- 
ness. Had  there  been  no  sin,  it  is  true  that  its  dif- 
ficulty would  not  have  perplexed  us.  Yet  it  is  to 
the  very  presence  of  sin  we  owe  the  surpassing 
manifestation  of  Divine  goodness  in  the  Gospel. 
We  see  the  Divine  love  here  as  we  could  not  other- 
wise have  seen  it,  stronger  than  sin  or  death,  tri- 
umphing over  the  very  enmity  assailing  it,  and  out 
of  the  very  darkest  difficulty  in  the  moral  universe 
bringing  forth  the  most  significant  tribute  to  the 
wisdom  and  beneficence  of  the  Divine  govern- 
ment. 

*  Romans,  v.  7,  8. 


CONSIDERATIONS   FROM   REVELATION.   401 

It  is  especially  in  the  perfect  harmony  of  Divine 
righteousness  and  love,  as  displayed  in  the  Gospel 
— in  the  spectacle  which  it  exhibits  of  God  hating 
sin,  and  yet  loving  the  sinner — that  its  testimony 
is  so  emphatic,  and  that  we  are  enabled  to  dwell 
with  such  satisfaction  on  that  testimony.  We  have 
already  seen  how  inalienably  intertwined  are  the 
attributes  of  goodness  and  righteousness — how  the 
former  only  sustains  itself  in  the  latter,  and,  apart 
from  it,  would  wholly  fail  to  preserve  its  own  pecu- 
liar life  and  virtue  ;  but  while  our  highest  concep- 
tion of  those  attributes  shows  them  indeed  to  be 
one  and  indivisible,  yet  it  must  be  admitted  that 
they  present  themselves  in  the  mirror  of  actual  life 
frequently  broken  and  dissevered.  "We  see  the 
traces  of  each,  on  the  one  hand,  in  happiness — on 
the  other,  in  punishment ;  but  we  fail  often  to  see 
their  harmony ;  we  are  unable  to  join  in  a  living 
synthesis  the  scattered  imitation  of  nature ;  we  can 
not  bring  into  consistency  its  disjointed  speech. 
But  in  the  revelation  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  the  frag- 
mentary hints  of  nature  receive  a  consistent  and 
satisfactory  interpretation.  Goodness  and  righteous- 
ness are  beheld  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross  as  no- 
where else.  Here  "  mercy  and  truth  have  met  to- 
gether; righteousness  and  peace  have  kissed  each 
other."*  Here  the  strength  of  love  and  "the 

*  Psalm  Ixxxv.  10. 


402  THEISM. 

beauty  of  holiness"  are  mingled  in  a  center  of 
Divine  perfection,  upon  which  the  human  heart 
can  repose  forever  with  the  firmest  faith  and  live- 
liest hope. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  DIVINE  MAN — INCARNATE  WISDOM  AND  LOVE. 

WITH  the  last  chapter  the  argument,  as  appre- 
hended by  us,  might  appropriately  have  closed  ;  it 
seems  so  superfluous  to  argue  on  the  foundation  of 
the  Gospel  revelation  for  the  wisdom  and  goodness 
of  God — that  revelation  being  only  conceivable  as 
in  the  highest  degree  an  expression  of  both.  Yet 
it  may  be  well  simply  to  glance  at  some  of  the 
special  features  of  Divine  excellence  thus  declared 
to  us.  The  teaching  and  character  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  the  adaptation  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
spiritual  elevation  and  the  consolation  of  the  hu- 
man race,  seem  to  present,  in  this  view,  the  most 
prominent  points  for  notice. 

It  is  not  now  denied  by  any,  even  by  those  who 
repudiate  the  Divine  authority  of  Christianity,  that 
we  have  in  the  teaching  and  character  of  Christ  a 
rare  exhibition  of  wisdom  and  goodness.  It  is 
acknowledged  that  He  who,  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago,  arose  a  Prophet  among  a  feeble  and  distracted 


404  T  H  E  1  S  M . 

people,  sunk  in  social  and  religious  debasement, 
taught  a  purer  and  more  exalted  morality,  and  lived 
a  life  of  more  beautiful  beneficence,  than  the  history 
of  the  world  elsewhere  presents.  While  such  a  phe- 
nomenon, in  all  the  circumstances,  must  appear 
somewhat  inexplicable  to  those  who  do  not  recog- 
nize in  it  any  thing  specially  Divine,  to  the  Christ- 
ian it  appears  clearly  intelligible  and  significant. 
He  recognizes  in  the  man  Christ  Jesus  the  incarna- 
tion of  Divine  wisdom  and  love.  He  beholds  in 
him  the  Word  made  flesh,  who  "dwelt  among 
us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the 
only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth." 

When  we  consider  the  special  point  in  our  argu- 
ment at  which  we  have  arrived,  we  recognize  the 
direct  bearing  upon  it  of  this  manifestation  of  Di- 
vine wisdom  in  Christ.  With  order  every  where 
pervading  the  physical  world — with  nature's  har- 
monies all  around — there  reigned  confusion  alone 
in  the  life  of  man.  There  were  in  him  the  prompt- 
ings of  a  noble  life,  which  at  the  best  remained 
unsatisfied,  and  which  too  frequent!}7  were  soon  ut- 
terly crushed  under  the  dominion  of  his  lower 
propensities  and  tendencies.  There  was  govern- 
ment every  where,  but  here  misrule.  Morality 
seemed  rather  a  varying  fiction  than  a  sovereign 
reality.  Giving  all  honor  to  the  aspiring  aims  of 
heathen  wisdom,  it  will  not  be  maintained  that  any 


THE    DIVINE    MAN.  405 

ancient  moralist  succeeded  in  discovering  a  perfect 
polity  for  this  sphere  of  misrule.  In  the  Porch  and 
in  the  Academy  there  had,  no  doubt,  been  taught 
some  pure  and  elevated  lessons,  and  certain  hints 
of  a  Divine  morality  had  there  been  reached,  which, 
as  we  read  them  now,  seem  anticipations  of  a  loftier 
truth;  but  in  none  of  the  classic  schools  do  we 
find  a  moral  doctrine  at  once  adequate  and  consist- 
ent. 

This  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  only  in  His  character  that  we  per- 
ceive a  perfect  example  of  moral  order,  and  in 
His  doctrine  that  we  acknowledge  a  perfect  rule 
of  moral  polity.  He  alone  fully  understood  what 
was  in  man,  and  what  he  needed  to  raise  him 
above  the  mere  earthly  life  so  natural  to  him, 
into  the  nobler  spiritual  life  of  truth  and  duty. 
Stoicism  on  the  one  hand,  and  Platonism  on  the 
other,  and,  later  than  either,  Eclecticism,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  devout  and  meditative  Plutarch,  had 
discerned,  with  sufficiently  clear  vision,  certain  as- 
pects of  man's  spiritual  being ;  but  they  altogether 
failed  in  that  comprehensive  conception  of  it  which 
is  expressed  in  the  teaching  of  Christ.  They  failed 
to  seize  the  twofold  character  of  moral  greatness 
and  yet  natural  degradation  which  man  every  where 
presents,  and  which  is  at  once  so  clearly  mirrored 
and  so  comprehensively  addressed  in  Christianity. 
This  profound  moral  insight  and  completely  ade- 


406  THEISM. 

quate  power  of  moral  instruction  are  novt  here  else 
exhibited.  Seeing  as  man  never  saw  into  the  se- 
crets of  the  human  heart,  the  Lord  Jesus  "  spake  as 
never  man  spake."  His  simple  utterances  breathed 
a  wisdom  of  which  the  sagacity  of  Socrates  and  the 
genius  of  Plato  had  only  caught  far-off  and  imper- 
fect glimpses.  He  taught  man,  as  neither  of  them 
had  done,  to  know  himself;  He  touched  with  a 
master  hand  the  secrets  of  his  moral  being,  reveal- 
ing their  discord,  and  providing  the  key  to  their 
higher  and  purer  harmony.  He  brought  back,  in 
short,  into  the  sphere  of  moral  misrule,  moral  order ; 
so  that  the  Theist  beholds  in  Him  a  perfect  expres- 
sion of  Divine  wisdom.  The  difficulties  which  may 
result  from  the  broken  and  defaced  manifestations 
of  this  wisdom  in  the  general  picture  of  humanity 
have  here  no  place  ;  for  here  is  the  representation, 
at  once  in  life  and  in  doctrine,  of  moral  perfection. 
In  the  man  Jesus  Christ  all  the  disorders  of  hu- 
manity disappear,  and  the  Divine  and  human  are 
seen  in  complete  and  most  beautiful  union.  Here 
we  have  the  "  possibility  of  the  human  race  made 
real ;"  and  in  the  luster  of  this  perfect  revelation 
of  moral  excellence  the  Divine  wisdom  shines 
forth  with  conspicuous  fullness.  Nay,  here  to  the 
Christian  Theist  is  the  Divine  wisdom  "  its  express 
image  and  the  brightness  of  its  glory." 

And  here  is  certainly  not  less  conspicuous  the 
revelation  of  the  Divine  goodness.     The  life  and- 


THE    DIVINE    MAN.  407 

the  death  of  Christ  presents,  in  truth,  the  most  ex- 
alted picture  of  love  that  we  can  conceive.  The 
more  we  contemplate  them,  the  more  does  the  im- 
pression of  Divine  beneficence  rise  upon  us.  He 
went  about  continually  doing  good.  He  dwelt 
among  men  as  a  brother,  sharing  their  joys,  and 
alleviating  with  an  inexhaustible  fullness  of  com- 
passion their  sorrows.  He  lived  only  to  communi- 
cate happiness,  and  to  shed  around  Him  blessing. 
His  ear  was  ever  open  to  the  cry  of  the  wretched, 
and  His  hand  ever  ready  to  help  the  helpless.  No 
aspect  of  human  suffering  repelled  his  sympathy — 
no  magnitude  of  moral  baseness  checked  the  flow 
of  His  pity.  He  healed  the  broken-hearted,  and 
set  at  liberty  the  bruised  spirit.  He  made  the 
blind  to  see,  the  lame  to  walk,  the  deaf  to  hear : 
the  sick  man  heard  His  voice,  and  his  sickness 
was  cured ;  the  dead  heard  it,  and  rose  to  life 
again.  The  spirit  of  beneficence  animated  Him 
with  so  Divine  a  strength  that  it  triumphed  over 
every  obstacle  of  hatred  and  persecution  which 
surrounded  Him,  and  flowed  forth  in  currents  of 
kindness  toward  His  most  obstinate  and  bitter  ene- 
mies. His  love  sought  and  accepted  no  reward 
save  its  own  exalted  exercise.  Persecution  could 
not  prevent  it — indignity  could  not  repel  it — con- 
tumely could  not  ruffle  it — death  could  not  quench 
it.  What  a  depth  of  Divine  compassion  breathes 
in  His  lament,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  how  often 


408  THEISM. 

would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together  as  a 
hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  but 
ye  would  not !"  What  a  fervor  of  infinite  mercy 
is  expressed  in  His  prayer,  u  Father,  forgive  them 
— they  know  not  what  they  do." 

The  whole  life  of  the  Saviour  is  truly  a  life  of 
love.  "We  can  not  regard  any  feature  of  it  that 
does  not  bear  the  impress  of  beneficent  devotion  ; 
and  as  we  evermore  meditate  on  its  Divine  beauty, 
we  still  see  some  finer  traits  of  tenderness  in  it, 
and  a  more  ennobling  stamp  of  grace. 

But  it  is  in  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ 
that  the  picture  of  Divine  love  appears  most  mar- 
velous and  transcendent.  Here  we  behold  Him 
wrestling  not  only  with  others7  misery  and  over- 
coming it,  but  moreover  with  the  dark  burden  of 
His  own,  inexplicable  agony,  and  triumphing  under 
all.  As  we  contemplate  the  lonely  and  shadowed 
figure  of  Grethsemane's  garden,  bowed  beneath  a 
load  of  suffering  which  tongue  shall  never  tell, 
and  as  we  raise  our  eyes  to  the  bleeding  victim  on 
the  cross,  we  feel  that  there  is  a  light  of  inexpress- 
ible love  shining  on  us  from  amid  all  that  dark- 
ness, as  it  burns  with  a  radiant  glow  in  the  bosom 
of  the  sufferer.  The  presence  of  a  love  stronger 
than  death  alone  sustains  under  all  that  mysterious 
passion.  There  is  here,  our  hearts  tell  us,  a  love 
which  "  passeth  knowledge."  There  have,  indeed, 
been  others  who  have  loved  unto  death — who 


THE    DIVINE    MAN.  409 

have  counted  not  their  own  lives  dear,  for  some 
noble  principle  or  glorious  cause — yet  there  is 
something  in  the  love  of  Christ  which  at  once  sets 
it  above  the  loftiest  example,  or  even  the  loftiest 
ideal  of  merely  human  affection.  It  is  a  love  soli- 
tary in  its  depth  and  grandeur,  reaching  far  be- 
yond our  conception  in  the  height  to  which  it  rises 
above  moral  sympathy,  and  triumphs  over  moral 
enmity.  Our  minds  can  not  understand,  but  our 
hearts  acknowledge  a  love  which  fed  upon  the 
very  neglect,  and  took  strength  from  the  very 
contempt,  which  it  encountered ;  a  love  which 
unworthiness  only  quickened,  and  hostility  only 
fanned — which  only  glowed  with  the  brighter  and 
more  ardent  luster  the  more  it  was  crushed  and 
bruised — which,  from  the  bloody  sweat  of  Geth- 
semane's  garden,  and  the  darker  agonies  of  Calva- 
rj7's  cross,  only  gathered  fresh  vigor  and  mastery, 
till  it  brought  forth  battle  unto  victory,  and;  as- 
cending to  that  eternal  Bosom  whence  it  emanated, 
"  led  captivity  captive,"  and  "gave  gifts  to  men." 

It  is  surely  impossible  to  contemplate  such  a  love 
without  feeling  that  the  great  heart  of  God  whence 
it  came  is  love  ;  and  whatever  difficulties  may  be- 
set the  burdened  human  heart,  there  is  here  a  pres- 
ence of  love  unstained,  to  which  it  can  ever  joy- 
fully turn.  There  is  here  a  radiance  of  benefi- 
cence which  shines  only  the  more  intense  from  the 
dark  background  of  sin  and  sorrow  which  reflects 
18 


410  THEISM. 

it.  There  issues  here,  from  the  very  shadowing  of 
the  Divine  character,  a  richer  brightness,  and  from 
the  hiding  of  its  strength,  only  a  more  glorious 
fullness. 


§  IV.— CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   GOSPEL   A   DIVINE   POWER  OF  MOKAL  ELEVA- 
TION AND  CONSOLATION. 

How  directly  the  Gospel  manifests  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  God  has  been  already  apparent. 
It  is  throughout  expressly  and  most  impressively 
a  revelation  of  both.  It  is  not  merely,  however, 
on  its  own  profession,  as  it  were,  but  moreover  in 
its  practical  effects,  that  we  are  enabled  to  appeal 
to  it  so  confidently  in  this  respect.  It  not  merely 
tells  us  that  God  is  love,  but  it  exhibits  the  fact  in 
its  widely  beneficent  influence. 

It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  conceive  how  the  Di- 
vine wisdom  and  goodness  could  have  been  demon- 
strated, in  the  special  circumstances  which  tend  to 
obscure  them,  more  effectually  than  by  such  a  dis- 
covery as  the  Gospel.  The  great  difficulty,  we  have 
seen,  upon  which  inquiry  can  throw  no  light — be- 
fore which  the  highest  efforts  of  human  wisdom 
are  powerless — is  the  existence  of  moral  evil.  In 
such  a  conjuncture  the  Gospel  meets  us,  not  only 


412  THEISM. 

telling  us  of  Divine  wisdom  and  goodness,  but 
proving  itself  to  be  the  revelation  of  both  in  its 
effectual  dealing  with  sin.  It  lays  hold  of  this  fact 
as  no  philosophy  has  ever  done,  revealing  at  once 
its  true  character  and  the  means  of  deliverance  from 
it.  It  presents,  for  the  first  time,  the  full  reality  of 
the  evil,  and  the  full  power  of  redemption  from  it. 
This  redemptive  power  of  the  Gospel  presents  a 
twofold  aspect  of  pardon  and  of  sanctification.  Hu- 
man life,  in  its  deep  disorder,  needed  not  only  a 
new  power  of  virtue,  but  a  free  gift  of  reconciliation. 
Before  the  soul  can  rise  in  holy  love  to  God,  the 
curse  of  estrangement  from  Him  must  be  removed, 
and  this  is  only  accomplished  by  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Cross.  The  living  and  thankful  surrender  of 
the  human  to  the  Divine  will  (whereby  sin  is  ever- 
more subdued,  and  virtue  evermore  advanced) 
only  rests  on  the  great  fact  of  Christ's  propitiatory 
sacrifice.  It  is  this  which  alone  renders  Christian 
virtue  possible,  and  gives  it  all  its  meaning.  It 
was  such  a  sacrifice  as  this  for  which  all  heathen- 
ism cried  out,  but  which  all  human  effort  could  not 
make.  It  was  the  want  of  such  a  sacrifice  that  left 
heathenism  so  powerless.  The  human  heart  can 
only  rest  on  the  eternal  foundation  of  an  accom- 
plished atonement,  whereby  God  is  beheld  "recon- 
ciling the  world  unto  Himself,"  and  "  not  imputing 
unto  man  his  trespasses."  Here  alone  it  finds  a 
power  of  Divine  peace  and  restoration.  The  bless- 


PURIFYING  AGENCY  OF  THE   GOSPEL.    413 

ing  of  pardon  comes  to  it  in  Jesus  Christ  with  an 
unspeakable  force  of  healing.  Its  wounds  are 
medicated,  its  terrors  allayed,  its  burden  of  trans- 
gression removed ;  and,  rejoicing  in  the  grace  of 
the  Divine  presence,  it  catches  the  sunlight  of  Di- 
vine purity  as  it  falls  on  it  in  clear  effulgence. 

The  gift  of  reconciliation  and  the  power  of  moral 
renovation  are  inseparably  conjoined  in  the  Gospel 
It  meets  man's  necessity  of  mediation  with  an  of- 
fended God  in  order  that  it  may  destroy  within 
him  the  dominion  of  sin,  and  reconstitute  and  ad- 
vance the  kingdom  of  moral  order.  Heathenism 
could  do  neither.  It  could  neither  abate  the  terrors 
of  guilt,  nor  give  strength  in  the  struggle  with  evil. 
But  the  Gospel,  by  one  and  the  same  power,  accom- 
plishes both.  The  act  of  grace  only  completes  it- 
self in  the  work  of  holiness,  which  inseparably 
takes  its  rise  in  the  former,  and  grows  therefrom, 
as  the  fair  tree  from  its  happy  springing  in  the  pre- 
pared soil.  The  seeds  of  a  new  moral  well-being 
are  already  quickened  in  the  first  contact  of  the 
soul  with  the  Divine  favor,  and  ready  to  develop 
into  all  forms  of  moral  loveliness.  All  springs 
from,  and  all  depends  upon,  the  Divine  power  re- 
vealed by  the  Gospel.  Such  a  power  alone  enables 
man  successfully  to  resist  temptation  and  overcome 
evil.  It  alone  secures  him  the  mastery  over  all 
that  is  base  and  disorderly  within  him.  It  alone 
strengthens  him  for  daily  duty,  and  when  the  en- 


414  THEISM. 

ticements  of  sin  prove  strongest,  and  the  sense  of 
responsibility  sleeps,  guards  him  from  the  snare  of 
earthly  passion,  and  guides  him  in-  the  way  of 
heavenly  aspiration.  Other  agencies  may  so  far 
help  to  improve  his  social  condition,  and  even  to 
refine  and  elevate  his  moral  affections ;  but  they 
can  not  any  of  them,  as  this  does,  touch  with  re- 
newing power  the  secret  springs  of  his  being,  and 
advance  him  into  a  higher  sphere  of  spiritual 
purity.  They  can  not  any  of  them,  as  this  does, 
raise  him  above  the  world  of  sense,  and  bring  him 
near  to  the  God  of  holiness.  "  For  whatsoever  is 
born  of  God  overcometh  the  world ;  and  this  is  the 
victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith." 
Further,  the  Gospel  is  an  effectual  source  of 
consolation  to  man.  In  a  previous  chapter  we 
have  spoken  of  the  beneficent  use  of  sorrow,  and 
of  the  virtuous  strength  and  beauty  which  its 
presence  often  achieves  in  human  life.  It  now 
becomes  us  to  observe  that  the  Divine  element 
which  is  thus  in  sorrow,  only  rises  to  its  genuine 
measure  and  reality  in  the  Gospel.  Here  alone 
does  it  become  truly  tempered  into  patience,  and 
deepened  into  experience,  and  exalted  into  hope. 
Here  alone  does  earthly  grief  become  transmuted 
into  heavenly  fervor,  and  tears  change  into  rapture. 
Here  only  does  the  sorrowing  soul  rise  into  spirit- 
ual strength,  and  a  rare  and  self-denying  devotion, 
where  the  light  of  Heaven  illuminate?  its  darkness ; 


CONSOLATIONS    OF    THE    GOSPEL.   4:15 

and  in  the  brightness  thus  reflected  from  a  higher 
sphere,  "  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  felt 
not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  to  be 
revealed." 

This  consoling  revelation  of  futurity  is  among 
the  most  divinely  beneficent  features  of  the  Gospel. 
Previously,  there  may  have  been  a  dim  sense  of 
man's  immortality,  and  of  the  preparatory  charac- 
ter of  this  life  in  relation  to  a  higher.  There  were 
some,  we  know,  who  could  write  with  pathetic 
beauty  of  the  nobler  life  upon  which  the  soul 
would  enter  beyond  the  grave  ;  but  the  clear  real- 
ity of  a  future  life  was  alone  disclosed  in  the  reve- 
lation of  the  Lord  Jesus.  He  alone  il  abolished 
death,  and  brought  Ufe  and  immortality  to  light 
through  the  Gospel."  It  is  only  through  His 
blessed  teaching  that  the  faith  of  immortality  has 
become  the  living  possession  of  the  human  mind 
and  heart.  He  alone  has  shed  an  eternal  bright- 
ness around  the  darkness  of  the  present,  and  made 
all  who  believe  in  Him  to  feel  with  an  unquencha- 
ble conviction  that  they  shall  never  die.  "  I  am 
the  Resurrection  and  the  Life :  he  that  believeth 
in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live ; 
and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 
never  die." 

In  what  a  light  of  Divine  meaning  does  this  * 
revelation  of  immortality  set  the  brief  period  of 
earthly  life  !     What  a  source  of  cc  nsoling  strength 


416  THEISM. 

is  it  to  the  weary  "human  heart  in  its  struggles  with 
sin  and  sorrow !  It  comes  as  a  beam  piercing  the 
darkness  from  a  higher  region  of  wisdom  and  love, 
of  truth  and  justice,  touching  what  were  otherwise 
dim  and  strange  with  a  radiance  of  heavenly  sig- 
nificance, and  the  "  otherwise  unmeaning  ciphers 
of  time  changing  to  orders  of  untold  value."  It  is 
this  faith  of  eternal  life  which  now  in  so  many 
homes  lightens  privation,  and  in  so  many  hearts 
keeps  off  despair  ;  which  brings  peace  to  the  trou- 
bled, and  resignation  to  the  mourner,  and  takes 
even  the  gloom  of  fear  from  the  night  of  death,  as 
it  opeiis  up  the  heaven  beyond. 

The  meaning  which  the  Gospel  has  thus  shed 
on  life,  and  death,  and  futurity,  giving  man  to  see 
their  true  relation,  serves,  perhaps  more  than  any 
thing  else,  to  reconcile  the  difficulties  of  time,  and 
"  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man."  For  it  opens 
up  a  boundless  prospect  of  being,  in  the  light  of 
which  the  perplexities  of  this  earthly  scene,  if  they 
do  not  disappear,  yet  become  significant  of  divine 
results  of  the  most  exalted  and  beneficent  charac- 
ter. Whatever  there  may  be  here  that  passes  his 
comprehension,  or  even  sometimes  wearies  his 
heart,  the  Christian,  carrying  as  he  does  the  peace 
of  God  within  him,  while  the  glory  of  immortality 
shines  before  him,  is  enabled  to  thank  God  and 
take  courage. 


§  IY.— CHAPTER   X. 

LIMITED  RECEPTION  OF  THE  GOSPEL — MILLENNIAL 
PROSPECT. 

THERE  is  an  obvious  objection,  we  are  well 
aware,  that  may  be  taken  to  the  foregoing  repre- 
sentation. If  the  Gospel  be  such  a  power  of  moral 
elevation  and  consolation  to  man — if  it  can  so  ef- 
fectually restore  the  ruin  wrought  within  him  by 
sin,  and  thus  manifests  practically  that  perfect  wis- 
dom and  goodness  of  which  it  speaks — why,  it 
may  be  asked,  has  its  influence  hitherto  been  so 
limited  ?  Why  does  it  prevail  within  so  narrow  a 
compass,  and,  even  where  it  does  prevail,  why  is 
its  beneficent  power  so  obstructed  and  inadequate  ? 
A  further  difficulty  would  seem  to  emerge  upon 
us  from  the  very  heart  of  the  evangelical  revelation 
of  Divine  wisdom  and  mercy. 

That  this,  however,  is  only  a  new  form  of  the 
old  difficulty  of  sin — of  the  fact  of  moral  evil  at  all 
— is  evident  on  a  little  reflection.  For  the  un- 
doubted reason  why  the  Gospel  is,  at  this  day,  so 
18* 


418  *!  3.  S  I  S  M  . 


slightly  aA^oaxkl,  \s,  that  it  is  opposed  by  man's 
unbelief  and  selfishness.  Men  will  not  come  unto 
Christ  that  they  may  have  life.  That  sin  which 
Christ  lived  and  died  to  destroy,  which  His  Spirit 
in  the  church  every  where  is  now  working  to  de- 
stroy, opposes  itself  with  hardened  hostility  to  the 
truth,  and  where  it  can  not  altogether  oppose,  de- 
grades and  corrupts  it. 

But  could  not  God  overcome  this  hostility  ?  Is 
it  not  the  special  representation  of  the  Gospel  that 
it  is  only  every  where  overcome  by  His  direct 
agency  ?  And  why  is  not  that  agency  so  power- 
fully and  universally  exerted,  as  to  bring  all  under 
its  benign  and  happy  sway  ?  In  such  depths  of 
dark  and  almost  irreverent  questioning  we  lose 
our  footing,  and  are  perhaps  better  silent  in  hope- 
ful trust  than  loud  in  curious  reply.  Having  ac- 
knowledged to  the  full  extent  the  awful  mystery 
of  sin,  we  might  rest  our  answer  on  this  mystery. 
Wholly  inscrutable,  there  is  nothing  about  it  more 
inscrutable  than  its  continued  power  of  resistance 
to  the  Gospel  —  than  its  opposition  to  the  truth  bear- 
ing upon  it  at  every  point,  and  summoning  it  to 
surrender.  A  few  words  of  explanation,  however, 
suggest  themselves. 

It  is  no  doubt  true  that  it  is  only  through  special 
Divine  agency  that  the  Gospel  every  where  makes 
progress,  and  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  conceive 
such  a  forth-putting  of  this  agency  as  might  speedi- 


LIMITED   RECEPTION   OF   THE   GOSPEL.   419 

ly  bring  the  whole  world  under  its  sway ;  yet  it  is 
no  less,  and  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  true, 
that  this  agency  every  where  only  works  in  co- 
operation with  the  free  agency  of  man.  It  is  a 
persuasive  power,  eliciting  and  strengthening  man's 
spirit,  but  in  no  case  forcibly  overbearing  it  even 
for  its  most  holy  purposes.  "  The  whole  course 
of  history,  as  well  as  the  express  teaching  of  reve- 
lation, prove  that  God  has  ever  dealt  with  man, 
not  by  the  strength  of  an  irresistible  power  crush- 
ing all  that  is  contrary  to  it,  but  by  the  moral 
strength  of  those  Divine  influences  by  which  He 
seeks  to  draw  every  inferior  will  into  true  harmony 
with  His  own  perfect  will.  And  no  doubt  t^s 
is  so,  because,  consistently  with  the  blessed  perfec- 
tion of  God,  it  could  not  be  otherwise ;  because 
He  is  most  glorified  in  being  served  by  a  world  of 
created  beings,  who  are  endued  with  the  mysteri- 
ous power  of  willing  good  or  evil,  and  who,  through 
His  grace  and  goodness,  have  been  each  one 
brought  into  true  harmony  with  Him."*  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see,  indeed,  that  the  idea  of  a  forcible 
and  compulsory  advance  of  the  Gospel  is  not  for  a 
moment  tenable  even  as  a  supposition.  For  in  the 
very  statement  of  this  idea  there  is  already  im- 
plied the  annihilation  of  the  moral  quality  in  man, 
which  alone  constitutes  the  Gospel  so  great  a  bless- 
ing to  him,  or  even  makes  him  possibly  a  subject 

*  Sermons  by  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  p.  95 :  1849. 


420  THEISM. 

of  it.  Unless  man  were  truly  possessed  of  a  will, 
the  Gospel  would  lose  all  meaning,  as  man  would 
lose  all  distinction  from  the  objects  of  nature 
around  him.  In  such  a  case,  it  has  been  well  said, 
"  There  could  be  really  no  true  living  being  in  the 
world  except  God.  For  to  have  a  will  is  in  truth 
to  live.  What  are  all  things  without  this  but  mere 
machines,  which  must  do  the  order  of  the  one 
Will  which  acts  through  them  ?  What  are  they 
but  mere  shadowy  figures  of  being  cast  forth  from 
the  one  Being?  If  we  do  not  believe  that  there 
are  separate  wills,  with  this  awful  power  of  resist- 
ing the  one  Will,  we  must  either  make  the  perfect- 
ly good  God  the  direct  cause  of  evil,  or  we  must 
admit  a  second  first  cause  from  whom  that  evil 
springs."* 

Here,  therefore,  we  come  back  to  the  final  mys- 
tery,of  creation,  the  fact  of  human  freedom.  In 
this  fact  is  contained  at  once  man's  glory  and  the 
possibility  of  his  fearful  revolt  and  shame.  It  is 
this  alone  which  at  once  makes  him  a  subject  of 
Divine  grace,  and  enables  him  to  oppose  that  grace. 
Forcibly  to  destroy  the  capability  of  opposition, 
would  be  to  destroy  the  very  character  of  his  being, 
and  to  leave  him  incapable  of  good  any  mere  than 
of  evil.  It  is  the  awful  peril  of  freedom,  that 
while  man  may  rise  into  union  with  God,  and  be- 
come a  partaker  of  the  Divine  nature,  he  may  no 

*  Sermons  by  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  pp.  95,  96:   1849. 


LIMITED   RECEPTION   OF   THE   GOSPEL.    421 

less  harden  himself  against  God,  and  fall  away 
from  Him  into  an  ever  deeper  revolt  and  abandon- 
ment of  selfishness. 

While,  therefore,  it  is  truly  saddening  and  per- 
plexing that  the  benign  influence  of  the  Gospel  has 
hitherto  been  confined  within  such  narrow  limits, 
it  must  be  kept  in  view  that  this  restraint  of  the 
Gospel  springs  from  man's  sinful  opposition,  and 
not  from  any  deficiency  of  wisdom  or  love  in  the 
Divine  will.  This,  we  apprehend,  will  not  be  de- 
nied by  any  Theist.  Whatever  be  the  more  special 
views  entertained  in  connection  with  this  point, 
every  Christian  Theologian  must  admit  that  the 
perfection  of  the  Divine  character  is  not  implicated 
in  the  restrained  influence  of  the  Gospel.  And 
this  is  all  that  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  hold. 
Here,  as  hitherto,  the  mystery  lies  before  us,  im- 
penetrably shrouded  in  its  very  nature,  but  reflect- 
ing its  darkness  directly,  not  on  the  Divine  char- 
acter, but  on  the  mysterious  fact  of  human  free- 
dom. 

Let  us  observe,  at  the  same  time,  before  passing 
finally  from  the  subject,  that  there  is  disclosed  to 
us  in  the  future  the  prospect  of  a  universal  reign 
of  holiness.  The  kingdom  of  Divine  order,  we  are 
assured,  shall  yet  prevail  throughout  the  whole 
moral,  as  now  throughout  the  whole  physical  world. 
To  this  gloriously  beneficent  end,  human  progress 
is  now,  artti  whatever  perplexities,  every  where 


422  THEISM. 

tending.  There  may  be  much  to  ..loud  this  pros- 
pect ;  there  may  even  seem,  in  certain  aspects  of 
social  life,  and  of  literary  and  speculative  culture 
in  our  day,  to  be  rather  a  recession  than  an  advance 
of  the  "  Gospel  of  the  kingdom."  Yet  it  is  amid 
such  very  crises  that  Christianity  is  found  pre-emi- 
nently to  approve  itself  the  power  of  God  and  the 
wisdom  of  God  for  the  world's  salvation.  It  puts 
forth  its  greatest  strength  in  seasons  of  the  utmost 
spiritual  darkness.  When  there  seems  to  be  only 
the  disturbance  of  conflicting  opinions,  there  is 
silently  preparing  beneath  the  embryotic  confusion 
a  fresh  life,  destined  to  rise  into  nobler  and  fairer 
forms  of  wisdom  and  beneficence  than  any  that 
have  gone  before.  And  this  will  certainly  be  the 
issue  of  present  as  of  former  conflicts.  The  Truth 
of  God,  purified  by  the  very  assaults  which  seem 
to  threaten  it,  will  go  forth  with  a  new  strength, 
"conquering  and  to  conquer." 

And  this  it  will  continue  to  do,  till  its  purifying 
spirit  penetrate  every  relation,  and  beautify  every 
aspect  of  human  life,  till  it  stamp  its  bright  and 
gladdening  impress  on  every  feature  alike  of  indi- 
vidual and  social  culture,  and  throughout  the 
moral  universe  there  reign  at  once  the  most  perfect 
order  and  the  purest  love.  As  we  believe  in  God, 
we  believe  in  the  advent  of  this  better  time,  "  when 
all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  shall  become  the 
kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  His  Christ;"  when  un- 


LIMITED   KECEPTION   OF   THE   GOSPEL.    423 

happiness  shall  be  no  more,  because  sin  shall  be  no 
more,  and,  amid  the  activities  of  unmingled  benefi- 
cence, the  world  shall  forget  its  past  conflicts,  and 
rejoice  in  an  everlasting  peace. 


CONCLUSION. 


IT  now  only  remains  to  conclude  our  subject,  by 
deducing  "from  the  whole  the  inferences  most 
necessary  for,  and  useful  to  mankind."  It  appears 
to  us  that  we  will  best  do  this  by  briefly  pointing 
out  the  essential  connection  of  Theism  both  with 
a  true  worship  and  a  true  morality.  There  are  no 
inferences  which  can  possibly  be  more  necessary 
and  useful  than  these,  and  both  seem  to  spring 
directly  out  of  the  whole  course  of  our  thought 
and  reasoning  in  the  present  Essay. 

Theism,  in  its  full  and  consistent  interpretation, 
as  set  forth  in  these  pages,  is  the  doctrine  of  one 
almighty,  wise,  and  loving  Will.  Personality  is 
the  central  and  most  essential  element  of  the 
doctrine.  It  is  only  this  fact,  expressed  in  our 
deepest  consciousness,  that  contains  for  us  at  once  the 
beginning  and  the  completion  of  the  theistic  argu- 
ment. Around  this  the  whole  doctrine  gathers  in  its 
manifold  significance  and  interest.  From  the  same 
fact  springs  all  its  distinctive  character  of  difficulty. 


THEISM.  425 

'or  the  final  view  unfolded  by  it  is  that  of  one 
creative  Will  in  relation  to  created  wills,  which, 
while  proclaiming  their  immediate  dependence 
upon  the  former — "from  whom,  and  by  whom, 
and  through  whom,  are  all  things" — yet  really 
possess  a  life  of  their  own,  which  may  oppose 
itself  to  the  supreme  Source  of  life.  In  this  anti- 
nomy Theism  finds  at  once  all  its  meaning  and  all 
its  mystery.  Herein  is  the  one  comprehending 
problem  of  creation ;  and  yet  herein,  as  it  has  been 
the  whole  aim  of  our  argument  to  show,  is  the  only 
key  to  an  explanation  of  creation,  which  does  not 
contradict  equally  the  demands  of  reason  and  the 
promptings  of  conscience. 

In  this  doctrine  of  a  personal  God,  to  whom 
man  holds  a  free  personal  relation,  there  is,  we  now 
assert,  the  only  basis  for  a  real  and  intelligent 
worship.  A  divine  Being,  in  whom  man  lives, 
and  yet  from  whose  .life  he  is,  in  a  true  sense, 
separate,  is,  and  can  be,  alone  an  object  of  pious 
interest  and  devotion.  Only  toward  such  a  Being- 
can  there  be  any  impulse  of  solemn  conviction — 
of  reverent  feeling.  Let  the  fundamental  theistic 
conception  of  will  disappear,  and  there  is  no  more 
any  living  Spirit  to  receive,  or  any  living  spirits  to 
render  worship.  Substitute  for  this  conception 
either  the  materialistic  notion  of  law,  or  the  pan- 
theistic dream  of  a  vast  nature-life,  and  piety  be- 
comes a  nonentity.  For  where  there  is  no  self- 


426  CONCLUSION 

sacrifice,  there  can  be  no  spiritual  offering.  There 
may  be  organic  unity,  but  there  can  not  be  moral 
harmony.  In  seeking  to  preserve  the  idea  of  life 
in  contrast  to  what  it  calls  "mechanical  concep- 
tions" of  the  Deity,  our  modern  unbelief  really 
empties  life  of  all  its  noblest  essence.  It  finds  its 
highest  expression  in  mere  nature-growth,  whereas 
this  growth  is  only  the  dim  shadow  and  type  of 
the  true  life  of  the  soul.  It  is  only,  as  it  were,  the 
rippling  play  mirroring  afar  off  the  true  depths  of 
life,  self-centered  in  God,  and  in  man,  made  in 
God's  image.  This  element  of  self,  as  something 
wholly  distinct  and  peculiar  in  creation,  alone 
enables  us  to  reach  the  genuine  meaning  of  life ; 
and  in  the  interchange  between  the  finite  and  the 
Infinite  self,  the  free  happy  offering  up  of  the  one 
into  the  all-embracing  bosom  of  the  other,  we  have 
alone  the  realization  of  worship. 

There  may,  indeed,  be  much  beautiful  talk  of  the 
worship  of  Nature,  of  the  homage  rendered  by  the 
whole  round  of  impersonal  existence  as  it  fulfills 
with  a  grand  uniformity  the  behests  of  its  divine 
Author;  but  the  face  of  nature,  we  know,  as  it 
thus  fulfills  its  course,  is  turned  to  God  with  no 
smile  of  intelligent  recognition,  or  of  holy  mean- 
ing. There  is  no  free  conscious  response  in  its 
ever-circulating  movements  to  the  great  Being  from 
whom  cometh  all  its  change  and  beauty.  It  is  the 
very  glory  of  man,  on  the  other  hand,  that  in  all 


THEISM,  427 

he  does  he  knows  and  wills  what  he  is  doing. 
And  it  is  only  in  this  element  of  intelligent  and 
spontaneous  action,  of  living  and  hearty  surrender, 
that  worship  becomes  a  reality.  It  is  only  in  the 
conception  of  a  finite  will  yielding  itself  in  free 
and  loving  obedience  to  the  infinite  Will,  that  piety 
finds  its  essential  meaning.  A  theistic  faith,  there- 
fore, alone  recognizes  the  condition  of  true  worship. 
Pantheism  in  its  very  conception  destroys  it,  and 
leaves  man,  whatever  may  be  its  pretensions,  with 
no  higher  life  than  that  of  nature.  Whether 
materialistic  or  ideal,  it  equally  takes  away  from 
man  any  reality  of  existence  distinct  from  the 
general  existence  of  the  universe.  He  is  merely,  in 
his  whole  being,  a  phase  of  the  world-life — its 
highest  point  of  development  in  the  one  case,  its 
self-creating  center  in  the  other..  In  either  case 
there  is  and  can  be  nothing  higher  than  himself. 
The  worship  of  humanity  is,  therefore,  not  only 
logically  but  avowedly  the  only  possible  worship 
to  the  Pantheist — positive  or  speculative. 

M.  Comte  expressly  propounds  such  a  worship 
as  the  appropriate  terminus  of  Positivism.  Hu- 
manity, as  the  collective  life  of  human  beings,  is 
in  his  system  the  $tre  supreme — the  only  one  we 
can  know,  therefore  the  only  one  we  can  worship.'* 
Hegelianism,  in  the  later  representations  to  which 

COMTE'S  Philosophy  of  the  Sciences,  pp.  341,  342.  By  £.  H, 
LEWES. 


428  C  0  N  C  L  U  8  I  O  X . 

it  has  been  consistently  reduced  by  the  "  Young 
Germany"  school,  bears  the  same  import,  and  utters 
the  same  language.  We  have,  therefore,  in  these 
systems,  something  avowed  as  the  only  possible 
worship,  which  in  its  very  conception  contradicts 
the  essential  meaning  of  worship.  Instead  of  self- 
prostration,  we  have  self-exaltation — instead  of 
self-sacrifice,  self-idolatry.  "Worship  becomes  a 
fantasy,  or,  still  worse,  a  profanity. 

In  the  more  vulgar  forms  of  materialistic  un- 
belief all  reality  of  worship  is  still  more  expressly 
destroyed.  Secularism  is  the  most  recent  form  in 
which  such  unbelief  has  put  itself  forward  in  this 
country  ;  and  its  most  positive  and  distinguishing 
feature,  it  is  instructive  to  notice,  is  the  abnegation 
of  all  worship.  Man,  it  is  declared,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  any  life  beyond  the  present  visible  one 
which  is  before  him  daily.  Any  hopes  or  fears  for 
the  future  do  not  concern  him.  Every  possible 
basis  of  religion  is  thus  uprooted.  Impiety,  in 
such  a  system,  becomes  a  creed,  and  animalism  its 
constant  and  infallible  tendency. 

It  will  be  found,  indeed,  no  less  clear  that  mo- 
rality only  finds  a  valid  basis  in  a  theistic  doctrine. 
It  is  only  in  such  a  personal  relation  between  man 
and  God  as  Theism  implies  that  responsibility 
emerges,  and  the  very  conception  of  duty  arises. 
Supposing  man  to  have  not  merely  the  ground  of 
his  being  in  Deity,  but  to  be  actually,  as  Pantheism 


THEISM.  429 


teaches,  a  part  of  the  Deity,  so  that  the  natural 
flow  of  his  life  is  merely  a  phase  or  transitional 
expression  of  the  All-life,  it  is  plain  that,  in  such  a 
view,  the  very  possibility  of  right  and  wrong  van- 
ishes. If  man,  in  all  the  modes  of  his  being,  be 
nothing  else  than  an  expression  of  the  divine  Life 
which  lives  through  all,  there  can  not  be  for  him 
any  morality.  One  species  of  action  must  be  as 
good  to  him,  because  as  divine  to  him,  as  another. 
And  this  is  a  conclusion  from  which  modern  Pan- 
theism has  not  shrunk.  In  the  figured  speech  of 
one,  all  whose  writings  are  more  or  less  pantheistic 
sermons,  we  are  told  that  "  the  Divine  effort  is 
never  relaxed  ;  the  carrion  in  the  sun  will  convert 
itself  into  grass  and  flowers ;  and  man,  though  in 
brothels  or  jails,  or  on  gibbets,  is  on  his  way  to  all 
that  is  true  and  good."*  We  have  here  a  genuine 
expression  of  Pantheism,  which,  notwithstanding 
its  lofty  prate  of  spiritualism,  is  still  always,  in  the 
necessity  of  the  case,  falling  back  into  the  slough 
of  sensualism,  to  which  there  is  nothing  higher 
than  mere  nature-life.  Man  is  to  it  necessarily 
nothing  else  than  "nature's  noblest  production." 
He  is  a  more  complex  and  beautiful  outgrowth 
than  the  grass  and  the  flowers,  but  this  is  all. 
There  is  no  further  spring  of  being  in  him  than  in 
them,  and  morality  is  therefore  in  its  idea  a  mere 
figment.  He  is  subject  to  no  higher  law  than  that 

*  EMERSON'S  Representative  Men,  p.  68. 


430  CONCLUSION. 

by  which  nature  works.  And  there  is  nothing, 
therefore,  that  can  be  false  or  wrong  in  his  life, 
nor  any  more,  indeed  any  thing,  that  can  be  right. 
Such  terms  can  have  no  meaning  in  such  a  system. 
Truth  can  only  be  a  dream  to  it,  and  love  an  acci- 
dent, finely  as  it  may  discourse  of  the  imperisha- 
bleness  of  both.* 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  indeed,  that  Pantheism  is 
often  pure  and  lofty  in  its  moral  language.  In 
minds  of  exalted  bias  and  refined  culture  the  mere 
life  of  nature  is  conceived  of  as  something  noble 
and  elevating  ;  and  the  writer  from  whom  we  have 
already  quoted,  betrays  sufficiently  in  all  his  works 
his  sense  of  such  a  life,  in  which  the  higher  tenden- 
cies of  humanity  are  supposed  to  receive  exercise 
and  satisfaction.  But,  lofty  as  may  be  the  moral 
tone  in  which  Pantheism  sometimes  speaks,  it 
bears  in  its  bosom  no  moral  strength  or  vitality, 
and  can  not  do  so.  It  may  tell  man  to  be  a  hero, 
but  it  has  no  voice  of  encouragement,  of  warning, 
or  of  help  to  him.  It  may  bid  him  live  purely 
as  reason  dictates ;  but  man,  in  his  common  life, 
is  not  governed  by  the  clearness  of  his  intellect, 
but  by  the  rectitude  of  his  affections  and  will. 
Pantheistic  intellectualism  has  accordingly  shown 
itself  to  be  the  coldest  and  least  potent  creed  that 
has  ever  sought  to  sway  man.  Some  minds  there 
may  always  be,  as  in  the  old  Roman  world,  that 

*  EMERSON'S  Representative  Men,  p.  69. 


T  H  E  1  S  M  .  431 


can  find  in  it  a  degree  of  moral  nurture,  but  to  the 
common  mind  and  heart  it  is  destitute  of  all  moral 
meaning  and  power;  nay,  to  them  its  sternest  sto- 
icism interprets  itself  by  clear  logical  consequence 
as  moral  indifferentism,  which,  readily  passes  over 
into  any  species  of  immorality,  and  theoretically 
legitimatizes  it.  The  only  genuine  moral  elements 
of  personality  and  conscience  find  no  place  in  it, 
and  in  the  denial  of  these  we  have  in  the  end  the 
sure  destruction  of  all  moral  life  and  happiness. 

It  is  only  a  doctrine  which  preserves  these  ele- 
ments in  their  full  integrity  that  furnishes  a  con- 
sistent basis  for  man's  religious  and  moral  culture. 
As  spiritual  life  only  takes  its  rise  in  them,  so  it 
can  only  flourish  where  they  are  clearly  acknowl- 
edged. The .  more  deeply  our  whole  being  is 
studied,  the  more,  we  feel  assured,  will  freedom 
and  conscience,  and,  in  a  word,  reason,  as  forming 
the  comprehensive  spiritual  element  in  man,  be 
acknowledged  as  realities — and  Theism  hence  be 
found  the  ennobling  complement  of  all  human 
study,  no  less  than  the  direct  expression  of  Divine 
Revelation. 


THE    END. 


14  DAY  USE 

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